It is such a ruinous and painful circumstance to have all of my ambitions, values, and one of my center most pillars of self-esteem hinge on a grade that I cannot seem to make in a class that is unconquerable for me.

I failed a math quiz yesterday; it is not the first. Each time it happens, I cannot help but feel my life's passions slipping further away.

I can hardly feign the self-esteem to hold my head up. I am embarrassed to my core. My chest aches, and my fists clench in spontaneous bouts of rageful frustration.

I am being defeated, and what is my life worth if I cannot muster the competence to fulfill my own objectives?

How much more of my own ineptitude will I be able to sustain before I renounce my values and give up? What will become of me if I do?

I can't live that way. I will not go through another five years of nihilism and self loathing. I'd end myself before that, my pride intact.

2/22/10 UPDATE: I have projected my grade over the rest of the semester and shown that moderate adjustments in my approach to the class should allow me to recover from this academic slump. This is the second time that I have attempted the class and I reason that several more attempts would be in order before my goals seemed implausible. The prospect, however, of having my goals delayed further, when they already promise to be so delayed, frightened me. I panicked before fully assessing the danger that my goals were in. That fact shames me to some extent.

I must rediscover an outlook that would alleviate my anxiety over such stressful occasions. I had such an outlook before. I don't know whats become of it.

Today was the first day of spring classes. I dislike the logistics of preparing for a new semester, ensuring transportation, securing funds, procuring books and materials, planning ahead for difficult classes, performing initial classwork, integrating my priorities into a new daily schedule, meanwhile my attentions are also diverted toward acquiring employment and troubleshooting an unstable BIOS and an uncooperative printer. I find it all very taxing, the abundance of imperative tasks that have no clear order or method by which to be performed.

Yet, I enjoy the strain in an almost masochistic way. It's like a muscle that is being strained in exercise. It's miserably unpleasant; the very intent is to cause damage up to the point of failure. The drive arises from knowing that the strain is the only way to obtain a new strength.

My classes are of a much greater cultural focus this semester. I hope that my time out of science classrooms does not leave my biochemistry rusty. I shall have to double my recreational reading of biology and chemistry related texts as to avoid this.