knew German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese more
fluently than a native, and could list the periodic table forwards,
backwards and sideways. She could tell you forty different plot
holes in the grandest schemes, write out any fairytale straight
from heart, and still have time to put up with her twin brother
at the end of the day.
I was awe-struck. I wanted so badly to be this beautiful,
amazing character, so I did. I tried to become her. I wore
headbands, I payed attention during class, I read between the
lines and I did my homework.
Everyone seemed to have the same reaction to me as I had
to Alex. So I kind of fell back. I told myself that I was already
smarter than everyone else, and I could take a break for a year
or two, because I felt like I knew it already.
But I quickly started to struggle. I noticed the flaw in my
master plan: I knew more than the average kid my age, but it
wasn’t what the school wanted me to know. I didn’t quite grasp
the idea of writing Journals or doing Systems. I didn’t really
know what was going on in the 18th and 19th century.
I lost the interest in most of my work, save for the core
things that Alex liked. Science, language, stories. I started a
system in seventh grade. I didn’t really mean to, but it kinda
went like this: procrastinate, fail to make the deadline, depend
on the next thing for my grade, repeat. When the end of the
quarter came, and my parents would be able to see my report
card, I would set a plan of action to start turning in all this
missing work.
But then the system would start up again. Plan to do things,
miss the deadline, beg for forgiveness, and try again the next
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