Failure

I am afraid of failing. Like, terrified. I always have been and I probably always will be. But it goes deeper than that, I am afraid of getting the tiniest thing wrong. If you ask me a question about something, no matter how insignificant the answer is in the grand scheme of things, I would rather go with you to find someone else who knew for sure than give you a wrong answer. And by going with you I will get to know the answer myself as well.

I guess a fear of failure or of being wrong isn't really an irrational fear; if you are wrong about if the guy at your front door is a murderer or not then it could cost you your life, if you fail to spot the signs of a fire next door you could - at least - end up getting burnt. I can't say either of these things have ever happened to me, but I would like to be correct about my decision if they ever do.

Not wanting to get things wrong is in some parts a good thing, it drove me to make sure that I made as few mistakes as possible throughout my academic life and even in the present moment I am still pushing myself to make sure I understand something - even if it isn't directly relevant to anything I need to know. I have always known things, even back at the ripe old age of 11 when I got incredibly high SAT scores.

I guess the fear of failure has gotten bigger as life has gotten harder. Really I should try and be less scared because the chances of it happening get higher as things get harder, and maybe I should try and learn to accept it; but the whole 'grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change' has never really been my thing. If something cannot be made better I want to know why; and I will scream and kick and drag my heels until someone offers me either a reason or a solution.

In High School I pulled off some of the best results the school has ever seen and then followed it up in College with an A* in what is now my degree subject. Even when it didn't count I got a 1st in my first year of university. The fear of failure seems to have been useful in ensuring that I didn't fail in the past, but now the chances and the stakes are almost as high as they're going to go and I feel like the pressure is mounting ready to pop the cork and drown me in my own misery.

Not that I'm not doing well. I'm working my arse off to keep on top of everything (except writing this instead of doing a lab report) and can generally write essays well. When things go a bit pear shaped I know how to claw them back so things are going my way again. But at the same time there is this part of me, that seems to have gotten bigger in the last 3 years, that is telling me that things keep getting harder and I'm closer and closer to falling off the cliff into my worst nightmare.

For my chosen career, a first is pretty much what I need. I know that and that's why I'm working as hard as I can without spinning into mental illness to get there. It's a tough road but it's the one I need to take. And I tell myself daily that it won't be the end of the road if it isn't a 1st, I'll just have to deviate and take a lesser travelled, less direct road. I've gotten this far and I've not failed yet, as a fan of statistics I cannot fail to see how they are on my side. As long as I ignore the part of me that is saying 'Law of averages, it has to happen sometime!' (or throw it the U I got in a General Studies exam and the D I got in GCSE Music) I can manage to keep myself afloat. And when I can't ignore it, I have a support network of friends and family who will argue with it for me (please ignore how mental this sentence makes my friends, family and myself seem).

So, in a rambly sort of way, I will conclude that failure is scary; and being scared of it is a perfectly normal part of everyday life. But I have managed 19 years without any significant failures, so the statistics seem to be on my side.

So that is going to get written on a post-it-note and stuck to my pinboard, and I'm going to get to work on this lab report.

Thoughts From Places: Primary Nostalgia Overload

My old Primary School is a 5 minute walk away from house (the same house I lived in when I was there). I took a stroll up the other day; while I was just out walking; and I was struck by how much the place had changed.

Just before we left, they have life sized wooden cut-outs of us done. We then got to paint ourselves and the 'Class of 2003' were mailed in a semi-circle on the wall in the undercover area. Mine looked ridiculous - in fact most of them looked ridiculous - but it was a way of knowing that we wouldn't be forgotten.

Recently (how recently I don't know; but I imagine in the last 5 years as I don't remember it happening when my brother was there) the undercover area was filled into to make another classroom. The wooden semi-circle was move to the main entrance of the school - which I guess means they were even more happy about having them. When my old year 6 teacher retired, they were still there. When I came back to help out, they were still there.

I walked up and went around the outside of the field, still completely unable to accept the view from the junior playground - lacking the undercover area that I spend the best part of 3 years of my life playing under in the great British weather composed almost entirely of rainy days.

I walked past the infant playground which looked (remarkably) like it always used to - back when I was a buddy to the cute blonde I mentioned back in BEDA: 4, even further back when I got in trouble for poking a girl in the eye in self-defence when she had jumped on my back and pulled my hair; even further still when I still thought hopscotch was fun before I fell and took the skin off my knees.

I dashed past the new bike racks and the sensory garden that replaced the area I ran through and into the road on my first day to the main entrance to admire my (somewhat embarrassing) handiwork through the new green fences.

Well, they were gone! I was heartbroken. I'm not entirely sure why some 8 year old piece of wood covered in (probably chipped) paint that doesn't even accurately represent me - even then, never mind now - meant so much, but I did feel slightly teary at the thought of all memory of the class of 2003 being eradicated in this new age where class sizes are so big I'm surprised they fit in the classrooms.

Hundreds of children have gone through that school in the 8 year period since I left; but I got all level 5s in my SATS, I played Blousey Brown, I always sang a solo and made my mum cry. I'm not even sure any of the teachers I had are still there - two retired, three moved on and I think one of them died. Knowing that your memory is gone from a place in 8 years makes me feel awfully old, even though I'm only 19. A part of me is tempted to Google the term dates and go and see if they need any help in the time between the new term starting and my going back to uni - but a bigger part of me is telling me to let it lie, and build a bigger legacy elsewhere.

I have the newspaper clippings to prove that it'll take an awfully long time for me to be forgotten in my high school - although its not something I want to be remembered for, or even remember myself. I get this feeling that I've left footprints of incredibly varying depths and I find this a little unsettling. The footprints in the mud have been rained over at primary school, the squashed snow at college melted almost as soon as I left and the indentations from my walk through high school and have been unwillingly cast into cement as an unhappy accessory. I guess I have to try and control how heavy my footfalls are in future - to be preserved where I want them to be, and washed over by the new generation where I don't want them to remain.

I do wonder what happened to those wooden cut-outs of us though.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 7 - A Song You Hate

Whip My Hair - Willow Smith

I don't know if I'm reading too much into this

I'm doing a sponsored swim (shameless plug: www.justgiving.com/MiniChannelSwim) so I've been spending a lot of time at the pool recently. You get to see an odd cross section of people when you spend a lot of time in one place - from the old women who are trying to stay mobile to the semi-professional swimmer who has their own swimming hat and nose clip to the cocky but attractive lifeguard and not forgetting the fat guy who is actually fitter than I am. It's almost a fascinating study of human behaviour if I wasn't too busy concentrating on breathing properly so as not to drown.

As much as I find myself fascinated and interested at the kinds of people I see, I also sometimes get a shock. It usually comes when I see someone I know but don't like or a type of person you wouldn't expect to be doing serious exercise.

But today I got more than a shock. I was so horrified by what I heard I had to start blogging again just to tell you.

The local schools take the children swimming once or twice a week and they put all of the girls in one big changing room and all of the boys in another with one member of staff each. The children all run in and unlock the door while the teacher signs them in. It's how we did it when we were young and obviously it still exists because I've seen it three times in the last two weeks.

But today, as a bunch of primary school girls (no older than 11 but only looked about 8) run in to go and get changed, I hear "No way, Katie is the skinniest girl in the class" followed up a few minutes later by "I'm only joking Katie, you're not really".

I was horrified by this! I guess I felt like the girl was indirectly calling Katie fat. In my eyes this is almost like bullying. I wish I'd been able to catch their teacher to tell her what I'd heard, but even if I had I'm not sure if she'd have laughed at me or not.

I don't know if I'm reading too much into it from my perspective I heard a girl who is no older than 11 indirectly telling another girl who is also no older than 11 that she at least is fatter than someone else in the class.

I didn't think that girls cared about their figures the figures of other girls before at least 13, but I don't know, that's just my personal experience. Maybe because I was always thin but was an early developer when it came to breasts so I had what you would imagine to be a good figure at the ripe old age of 11, but when I was in primary school we were all busy laughing at boys and seeing how naughty we could be and still get away with it. Bullies would pick on what colour hair you had or if you were smart; not your figure.

Am I reading too far into this? Or have primary school girls really changed so much in the 7 years since I was one?