Pressure

     Hmm, I've got about seven minutes before midnight comes and my internet gets cut off, so let me see what I can come up with...
     Okay, first off I have to say that any teenager that gets grounded from internet is probably a lot luckier than I am. In most cases that I'm aware of (which I'm not sure how accurate it is, by the way, since I don't really know anyone else) the kids just get told not to go on and get into trouble if they get caught. But my point is, the kid can still sneak on. That is not the case with me. See, I've got a dad and older brother who are more or less in my eyes technology experts. If there's any sort of technical problem with one of the computers or the tvs that we don't know how to fix, we go to them and they sort it out. And some would argue and say that that's a good thing. But while it is actually good, it's also bad, because when I'm grounded from internet, I get cut off of it entirely.
     Right now I have inernet from some point in the morning (I'm guessing 8 o'clock, but I'm never awake at that time so I wouldn't know) to midnight every night. Any time between that, and I don't have any internet. But I suppose it's better than having 24 hour access and having my computer get taken away at night. And anyways, I do deserve it. For those who are curious, I'm not doing so much schoolwork as I need to. I could easily storm through it if I wanted to and risk at worst average grades (I would be on the honor roll if it actually existed in a homeschooling system) But I don't. (Aw, midnight came. I guess I'll be putting the rest of this up tomorrow)
     Now, you might be wondering why I don't do exactly that. I'm smart and able to figure things out where I don't need to memorize the facts, but I choose not to do it as much as my parents expect me to. The reason for this is the pressure behind it. For as long as I can remember I've always been smart. I have an older sister by not quite two years, and I learned to read alongside her. I was faster at it too. And I've loved reading since I can remember too. I only vaguely remember preschool, but when I was in kindergarten, I was at 3 schools in total. One school for roughly the first half of the year, and a morning kindergarten and a separate kindergarten for the other half. I remember being at the top of that first school. I was smarter than the other kids and was doing extra work when I got done with the work they assigned to everyone. And it was a lot of fun back then. I think I still felt the pressure back then (though my memory is admittedly fuzzy of back then) but it wasn't as much as I feel now. As for the second half of that year where I was in the two schools, I don't really remember that. It's strange how I can remember more of the first half, I think. But maybe it's because I had more fun.
     Anyways, the next two years, first grade and second grade, I started feeling the pressure more. My parents, and I think others as well, knew I was smart. I was able to do the work they assigned to me easily. I was advanced with my reading level (I believe I was reading chapter books in first grade) I got third place in a school-wide reading competition in one of those years, though I don't remember which, with my older brother getting first (he was in fifth grade or so) and one of his classmates I think getting second. Or that's what I remember, anyways. My memory is very fuzzy of things concerning school. But still, I was a young kid (now that I think about it, I think I was in first grade, by the way) and getting third place in a reading competition where you were counted on how many pages you read was an accomplishment for me. I don't even remember what I won. There were actually a bunch of competitions, and if memory serves rightly then that wasn't the only one I placed in the top 3 for.
     Actually, now that I'm remembering that school I remember a lot of other things too. First and second grade were probably the two best years of my life. I had friends, I had fun, and I liked being a teacher's assistant. To me, I was special there. The only thing I didn't lke was physical education. I've always been an introvert, even if I didin't know it back then, so things like running and playing sports have never come easily to me. Even today, though I'm in much better shape than I was way back then, I still get tired easily from doing too much running. And the funny thing is that in both years there was this little school competition called the Jog-A-Thon. It was a yearly event that made kids go and jog around a big track and see who could do the most laps. Or that's what I think anyways. As much as I ever wanted to go to one of those (and surprisingly, I did want to go to that very much) I couldn't. In one of the years, I happened to have a doctors appointment on the very same day, and the other I was sick for the entire week because of drinking Mountain Dew (something about it having too much caffiene. I haven't had a sip of it since then and avoid it at all costs)
     Ah jeez, I'm going off topic from the point I wanted to make. Too many memories, I suppose. But anyways, despite those years being the best so far of my life, I still felt the pressure. I was very short for my age back then (and have always been, actually) so I got teased a lot for that. And there were some days when I was able to laugh so hard that I couldn't breathe, but there were also a lot of days when even the slightest tease about my height would make me block everything out. I was never a social person to begin with, and the teasing never helped. I don't think that I was absolute smartest person in my class either year, but I was still very smart. I remember doing a test in one year that woud've let me skip a grade if I had passed. But I was sick that day and messed up on some parts. I could've retaken the test when I got better, but they didn't let me because they said that my height, which was already distancing me from my classmates, would only further distance me from other kids in higher grades. Actually, I'm not sure if they ever said that to me, but I think it was just something that was said around me and I just happened to hear it.
     Either way, there was pressure. And as I grew older, it just got worse. We moved when I was done with second grade, to the house that I now live in. And from then I've had the rest of elementary school done in another public school, 6th and 7th grade done in a private school, and 8th grade onwards until now in 12th grade in homeschool. With me being mostly antisocial and actually pretty forgetful (as well as having a tendency not to want or do homework half the time) I got average grades. Maybe one or two A's through the year, a few B's, but I think more C's than anything. I don't ever remembering having something lower than a C though. And I think that if I had actually put more effort into school I could've gotten straight A's, or high B's at the very least. Actually, since doing homeschooling I've gotten mostly just that.
     And this is where the pressure sets in the most. The work gets harder and harder every year, and I'm at the point where I don't know how to do half of the math or physics equations they're trying to teach me. Math is easy to understand, because my cirriculum in entirely on the computer and has very few problems that need my teacher (my parents, in other words) to grade the problems. The lessons for math are awful, since they don't really describe what I need to know to solve the problems. They have an example of a problem that is never really like the problems I'm actually trying to solve and go through the problem without really explaining anything. But for a while it was okay, because I'm still smart and I have more of a knack now to see how things work than I did before and could figure it out in the end. But when I started moving onto graphs? I'm still confused about it. The one thing that still trips me up the most is the graphs. I've sort of figured out how to figure them out, but half the time I'm actually just guessing because I don't really know how to do it. But that's not entirely my fault. The lessons really are bad, and I don't always know what to look for on the internet.
     Anyways, since doing homeschooling I've been happier and more sad than when I was in any other school. I'm happier because I don't need to listen to any classmates teasing me about my height and other various things, but also more sad because I have no excuse not to get straight A's because I can't forget to do my homework or have some other feeble excuse as to why I never did it in the past. And it is something I'm reminded of every single time that schoolwork comes into conversation. I struggle for the most part to get high B's, let alone straight A's. And while I could argue and say that I'm not trying my hardest, I'm still trying pretty hard. It's not my fault that I just don't understand some things, is it? After all, neither my mom nor my older sister know a lot about math, and as much as I struggle with it I know that they understand even less of it than I do.
     So yeah, it is pretty hard trying to keep completely up-to-date on my schoolwork (let alone to work a few months ahead, since they also expect that of me) Especially when it's hard to concentrate on anything with the amount of noise here at home. And if anyone wants to tell me that I could just go to a friend's house or the library or something, I can't. I don't have any friends, and even if I had a drivers licensce it's not like I can just borrow anyone's car randomly for a few hours. So mostly I just try to find small patches of time where I feel that I actually can concentrate on anything more than music to actually try doing schoolwork, because otherwise my grades start slipping and then I never hear the end of it.
     Pressure is something that's always existed for me. I've always been good (meaning, not completely awful) at anything I've tried, and that seems to put me in a challenging place. While I don't believe that my life could've really been different overall if I started it over knowing everything I know now, sometimes I still wish I could start over. Try and pretend that it could be better.
     Of course, that's just wishful thinking. I feel like I'm destined to fail in life, even if I might not fail in grades or anything. The person my family knows is not the real me because of everything that has happened. They know parts of me, yes, but not who I really am. They don't know that I feel a crushing weight because of the pressure from school and because of the tension at home. They don't know that I've been supressing my feelings for years, which is why I probably come off as cold an unemotional to some people.
     But that's another topic. I think I'll address that one next, since it's taken me an hour to write all this and I really need to get some sleep, seeing as I feel so exhausted during the day the entire time.
     Oh, and just for in case you're wondering, I did write this last night from about 11:53 to about 12:55. But since internet was cut off, I couldn't post this. And I feel like I didn't really get my point straight through, but I'm already half-busy writing my next post and I'll probably go further in on pressure there.