I had my first exam of the semester today and I’m feeling a bit bummed. Yes, I realize that in the larger scope of things what I’m about to share may seem so trivial and minute and not worth even expending energy on for some, but for me, for today, I need to share this experience so that I can truly shake it off and move on.

So it’s no secret that this semester the amount of time I’ve had to read and study has been very limited, but I’ve been trying my best with what I’ve been able to use. The last week has been very stressful because I’ve been trying to spend as much time possible reviewing and as I sat in class ready to see what our exam consisted of all I could do was hope for the best and try and brush off this feeling of worry lingering over me.

Our professor ended up giving us one  essay question, worth 100 points, and today for the first time when I saw the question I actually had a second of panic and then I completely drew a blank. It was the first time that I just stared at my paper and had no idea how/where to begin. This was an odd feeling for me because, writing, for me, especially in essay tests has usually been my strong suit. I don’t usually brainstorm/outline but today that was the first thing I immediately turned to after staring at my blank booklet for a few seconds because I was worried that whatever ideas/thoughts I had in my brain would just disappear into thin air if I just kept staring at the blank page. So I started to scribble everything and anything that came to mind on the essay topic.

I knew I had to move on to actually constructing all those ideas into an essay format, and again, I just stared at the page. Eventually I started in on my first sentence and then stopped. I reread what I’d written and thought, that was what I came up with for the intro? This was not looking good. Self doubt started to creep it’s way up and just as I was about to tear out that sheet and start fresh, I decided to just go with it and continue writing.

I left the class feeling rather deflated. I realized that I had completely missed the mark on one of the concepts required to discuss in the essay and although I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it now, I felt bummed. In my mind that paper and what I wrote was an interpretation of who I am as a student in that class and I felt embarrassed to think that what it was going to give is a very subpar image of me and my efforts and knowledge/comprehension of the material.

Now that I’ve shared this though I’m going to let this feeling go and just accept that I did my best given what time I had available and that all I can do is aim for better the next time around. I have another exam on Tuesday for a different class and although I didn’t leave with the best mindset today, I’m not letting that cloud things for my next exam. I’m thinking positive, putting my best intentions forward and making sure to separate one experience from the other so that I can go into class Tuesday with a fresh mindset.

And I’m going to keep in mind what my husband said, while yes, this may have been something that I feel I didn’t do as well in, I need to remind myself of all the other positive and great things I’ve accomplished and how this little event doesn’t sum up who I am or my efforts as a whole. There are so many parts that make that up.