Thursday, January 14, 2010

It's a mistake!

When I was in 12th std....

Me: Mom, Dad, I wanna enroll in the Ten-Test program


Parents: What's a Ten test?


Me: Its something a tuition centre close to home offers. They'll give 10 model exams for Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, correct the papers and give them back


Parents: 10 model exams in the span of 2-3 months???? From a tuition centre??? Doesn't your school have model exams?


Me: The school has 3 model exams


Parents: 13 model exams??? But why do you want to put yourself through the torture of writing extra exams? I thought kids these days try to avoid exams and find a way to get out of them!


Me: Well... not this one!

The reasoning behind the whole Ten-Test series back then was that I was extremely thorough with my text books and didn't know what to study/revise anymore. In spite of that, I never got full marks in science and maths because I'd always make some careless mistake or the other. But the good thing was, everytime I made a mistake in the exam, I'd learn from it and never ever ever never ever again make the same mistake. But the problem was, every test, I used to make a different mistake and still lose marks! So the idea was that if I write 13 model exams, I would have learnt from so so so many mistakes that in my final board exam, I'd get full marks or at least really really close to that!

The strategy was an overwhelming success. For the first time in my life, my overall score (including english and french) was 98.6%. an achievement I am very proud of and also that would not have been possible without my bizarre Ten-test program! Making mistakes really helped in making my score a little better each time.

These past two days in Dallas, I have been sitting and looking back at the 5 months that I have spent here. And I realize that there were a lot of decisions that I had taken in life that were not so smart. And I regret them deeply now. For a while I felt like everything was ruined. In such a situation of desperation and hopelessness, I went on a calling spree, calling and talking to a few old friends from undergrad. And the really close friends had the same thing to say to me....

"You made some mistakes over the past 5 months, yes, there is no denying that. But why do you look at that so negatively? You gotta pick yourself up, brush off the dust and keep going! Learn from your mistakes. Its a good thing in a way that these things happen. Now you know how to handle such scenarios should you ever encounter them again. And trust me, you will encounter them again and again in your adult life."

I guess over the past 4 years I had enrolled in some strange kind of Ten-test series with the friends I made in Singapore.

The last time I took the Ten-test, it was totally worth it.

I am sure it will be again :) Looking to score more than 98.6% this time :) :) :)

4 comments:

spsgragw said...

Is n't it wonderful that you have friends whom you can call during crisis? Friends are usually good crisis managers. Those who have friends are the blessed ones. Even during the times when internet and cell phones were there only in science fiction, friends had managed to keep in touch with what is known as THE POST! Post offices have played major role in the lives of people then, I have tremendous respect for our postal service and postmen.
There will be more ten-tests you will be enrolling in future in the subject called LIFE and I am sure you will come out shining through. Good luck with the upcoming ten-tests.

doublehead said...

Oooops, the "spsgragw" is me, doublehead

Anusha said...

:D!

Anonymous said...

Good luck! Life's all about learning from our mistakes and moving on I guess..