NOV 9, 2024
on getting cooked by my analysis midterm
or, there is only what is true and what needs to be done
So…I just got cooked by my analysis midterm…like, really cooked.
I’m slightly concerned about the grade and definitely concerned about the whole “Maybe I don’t actually know analysis” thing, but these aren’t even my biggest concerns.
The thing I’m actually worried about is that I grossly miscalculated how much I actually knew. Now for various life reasons,[1] I did know that I was nowhere near as prepared as I wanted to be for this exam. But I genuinely thought that I was going to do fine—maybe I wasn’t at an A++ level, but I had the fundamentals down, right?
In reality, I was fooling myself into believing what I wanted to believe.
This is so concerning because I highly value my ability to be honest with myself, especially about things that I wish weren’t true. I have found that this kind of honesty—accepting the reality of where I am now—is a prerequisite to getting better.[2] And to my credit, I have been getting better at this, I think.
But there is nothing left to do but to face it—I’m getting better, but I’m not quite there yet. If I am to be the person that I want to be, I have to admit the reality of the situation to myself, and react accordingly. The evidence shows that I don’t know analysis nearly as well as I should, which implies that I’m studying ineffectively. So I’ll need to change something about how I learn the material.
I am a little disappointed in myself, but there is no need to be. There is only what is true and what needs to be done.