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Monday, May 25, 2009

Too Smart For My Own Good

Of all the flaws I can lay claim to, I never thought I'd end up ruing the fact that my intelligence was too high!


Yes, you read right: I have come to the painful conclusion that I'm just too smart for my own good. Allow me to elaborate.


I have been fortunate enough to experience the joys of education to its fullest potential, especially during my college years, where my ardent love for academics was so evident that my lecturers seemed intent on making me repeat several papers every semester.


(To those that actually didn't understand that - I failed. A lot. Often. Always.)


It wasn't really my fault, aside from the fact that I spent more time hitting the courts than hitting the books. Apparently extra-curricular excellence doesn't make the exams any easier, and it definitely doesn't help when you're short of attendance! In class I was a permanent member of the 'middle benchers' club. Yes, we middle bencher's aren't smart enough to sit in the front and not stoned enough to sit in the back. We're the ones that LOOK intelligent and can be seen furiously scribbling in our notebooks during class with an 'attentive' look plastered across our faces, nodding wisely whenever the lecturer's gaze drifts in our general direction. Such a sham. If there was a test on shadiness I'd have aced it.


Yet, despite my shambolic academic record, I have never been labelled a 'dunce'. In fact, my lecturers always seemed to think I was some form of 'genius-in-hiding' that was always on the verge of bursting forth in brilliance. Somewhat like Guns-N-Roses' "Chinese Democracy", only that didn't really burst forth so much as just 'bust'. A frightening analogy, come to think of it.


This can be mildly annoying. Just last weekend, we had a test for my weekend course. After the previous class, some of my classmates were copying the 'probable questions' from each other, and I sort of hovered in the area just to see how much I didn't know. One of the girls decided to strike up a conversation with me, and asked me what I had studied in India. "Engineering", I said, as deadpan as I could manage. Her eyes slightly widened, and she asked "Which field?" in almost hushed tones. By now I knew there was no sense hiding anymore, so I told her. "Electrical and Electronics". She continued staring, and then sort of rolled her eyes and never uttered another word.


I've become rather used to this reaction now. While I was still a student, telling my seniors that I was in the dreaded E/E branch was usually met with laughter and sympathy, as it was one of the toughest and most unforgiving streams of engineering. To tell someone that you actually graduated in that field and then complain about defining "personality" and "job satisfaction" is like training for a triathlon and complaining about the distance from your front door to the post box.


Fast forward to the last Saturday, and I turn up for my exam with 4 hours of sleep and 5 hours of rushed studying (instead of crib notes) under my belt. I was nervous, and understandably so - I had my fake reputation at stake. As is often the case, I was cursing myself for opening my books only 12 hours before the exam and wishing that I had just one hour more to read that last chapter one more time at least once. I never learn.


Fast forward to after the exam, and I'm the first one to finish. We had to answer 10 out of 12 questions, and I am fairly convinced I have nailed at least 7 and a half of them. The girl that spoke to me last week comes out, and I ask her how it was. "Okay, I think. What about you? 100/100? [giggle] You are a genius no? [giggle]"


Great. And here I was planning on celebrating if I scored above 60%. Being a nerd, even a fake one, just sucks the joy out of everything!


From now on I'm just going to head to class like this:







15 comments:

Cadence said...

hahaha!!! oh boy!! Nerdy much! :)

Jerry said...

NERRRRRRRD!
:P

PseudoRandom said...

ElecEng? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA sucker :P Should've done ChemEng instead ;) :P Seriously though, how did you survive? I slept through all my ElecEng lectures :S

And as for the 'nerd' label, at least she still talks to you! People walk away when I tell them I'm an engineer :S

Dili said...

Let me get this straight.... you're smart but you're lazy, girls actually seem to come after you because you're 'smart' and so you wish you were stupid? Well yeah.. I guess you are stupid :P ROFL

Nat said...

oh the conundrum! life IS hard for some of us.

Gehan said...

cadence: :P

jerry: yes, yes, watever...

PR: lol thats cos chem engineers are boring :P

dili: [tries to understand comment]
[fails] :D

HHZ: well, i didnt really complain abt 'life', jus sayin that ppl tend to judge a persons intellect solely based on his/her appearance etc..

Naal said...

ahhhh...hmmmm....errr...*clears throat*....join the club!!!...:D

Scrumps said...

Smarter than you look?! Come on - you dopn't look that dumb! :-P

Scrumps said...

That should say don't but you knew that right?!

Sabby said...

Hahahahaha at Dili's comment!

Poor little nerd boy! =P

hijinx said...

i so get the hidden genius thing.. I've not aced a single exam recently, yet people persist in thinking things are going to be a cinch. COuld be 'cause I seem not to care?

Anonymous said...

I really appreciate it that someone finally came out of the box. Through my entire life I was praised and admired for my ability to understand, and my "awesome" semi-photographic memory. O yes, I was an arrogant little bastard: Ah yes, the good old days when I used to skip class, sleep on the open tables in the back of the classroom so often that my teachers' left me alone eventually... But I was alone. My peers never reacted well whenever I decided to ask a question; and still today I get the same response. I always sit right at the back, and sometimes I have a question, so I ask. Usually when I am done speaking, total silence ensues. And the lecturer thinks for a bit. A lecture hall of approx. 200 students, and even the normal hum-drum of shuffling bodies and whispers vanish, silenced by my innocent question, which they half-understood and need to know. But the best part is when the lecturer finally utters one resounding phrase, four words, which I have grown to despise: "Yes, you are right." Naturally, chaos follows as everybody tries to understand that which I have just noticed...

Anonymous said...

i a in middle school and have a certificate saying i am one of the smartest people in the world. my teachers expect A LOT

Anonymous said...

I relate to this so well.
I tought I was ADD or ADHD because I couldnt study until the last second or I ended up doing nothing at all.
The thing is elementary and high school for me was going to school, putting no effort into it at all, and passing everything with either no study at all or bare minimum, before the last exam, for like 1-2 hours.

In college I it didn't change much. Maybe the study time increase to 1-3 hours.

Then University. Now I fail probably a third of my classes, and the main reason is I'm not motivated. When I do pass a class, I probably missed at least 3 of the 14 classes and I studied maybe 2-3 hours for about 1 of the 3 exams.

I'm in computer science. The pace of the classes however are just too slow. bus for 2 hours for a 1 hour class where you learn things you could have in 15 minutes. Or 3 hours of pain.

I've been prescribed biphentin, which is a form of ritalin. It helps me do boring and mundane tasks, such has studying for an exam or listening to what the teacher says.

I've also tried running about 1 to 2 hours just before a class. It helps me focus because I'm high on endorphins.

Well I'll have to live with it and finish my studies without failing so much now. They tried to kick me out of the program but I told them I was ADHD and gave them the doctor's diagnosis, which I got after arguing 15 minutes with him.

It wasnt really cheating because at the time I tought I was because I tought I had a problem. Then I saw a page about add and being gifted, and they said gifted children have symptoms of add not because they have a brain defect but rather because their brain is too good for school and thus it's not really ADD.

This is not laziness, it's the lack of any challenge. And people with lower IQs will try a lot of things to put you down when they know it because they feel inferior. Well They don't have to feel inferior. Most likely they can have better grades than me because school is made for them and the world is made for them.

Some people say: You have a ferrari in your head, but you ain't using it!
But it's not it. It's rather: Winning the 100 yards race with a ferrari is just deathly boring and I can't do it anymore. IT'S JUST SO FUCKING BORING.

Anonymous said...

The fools are the ones calling you nerd, that's what fools do all the time.. don't they..!!!
Trust me, I have to hide my genius in the box all the time, cos in the company of fools, act like one. It's stupid the way they talk, always blabbering nonsense under the sun, with topics that holds little gravity. The more you embark into deeper topics, they shun away cos it's boring to them, cos they refuse to use their brain, if there is much at all in that thick skull of theirs.
Smart ones are like wolves hiding in sheep skin, don't throw away your cover lest the sheep start fleeing. The aim is to try to be the shepherd and control the flock, so the fools will serve you rather than shun you out.. Get it??

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