You know, one day I will be thankful for how college pushed me. It hurts and it sucks and I hate this feeling of doom until I find out what my final grade was, but it strengthened my will to persevere. I am such a perfectionist that I rarely get anything done. That's part of why I flaunt my choreographic accomplishments and my novels so obviously -- it's not about getting attention, it's just about the fact that I actually finished something. My room is a graveyard of unfinished projects. And being in college forced me to finish things. I hated every second of that Spiritual Formation paper last year (and the Church Ministry paper, and the history paper and every English paper ever...), but because my grade depended on them, I got them done. And it showed me I could.
I have an iron will when it comes to things I really want (noveling, choreography), but if I don't care about something with every fibre of my being, I honestly don't care at all (the same goes for my friends, and it freaks them out because this means I'm very intensely loyal -- caring about someone with every fibre of your being has that effect). The perfectionist desire for decent grades forced me to finish these papers I hated. Writing a good paper was not my primary concern -- my primary concern was just meeting the word count and not getting a failing grade. College has forced me to see things through, to complete stupid and pointless things.
But now I do know that I can get things done. I know a few tricks to manipulate myself into actually getting things done. Most of them I originally learnt from NaNoWriMo, but they were refined and expanded on here in college.
I hate the stress. I will be so happy to get out of here, not because the profs or classes suck (I actually really like the profs and the classes, generally speaking), but because I will actually be able to breathe easy again. But I suppose once I'm out of the trenches I will be grateful for how it forced me to finish things.
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