Writer: Nadeen Mazen
Editor: Ahmed Ashry
Graphic designer: Abdelrahman Gamal
When it comes to grades, there’s always a bittersweet anticipation that comes simultaneously with it. The rush of emotions you feel before, during, and after receiving the grades can be overwhelming, to say the least, and the wait. The wait is the worst, for it is excruciatingly slow. You stay anxiously up all night with your head spinning as it wonders about all the details it could’ve missed, and all the wrong answers you could’ve checked. It keeps bringing you from a high to a low in an unending cycle that you can barely keep up with. Suddenly, it’s 6:55 Am. It’s almost time and, in a matter of minutes, when you refresh the page on your screen in the darkness of your room alone, on a call with a friend or surrounded by your whole family, your eyes will fixate on the tiny letters that will dictate your future. It’s ironic how those little letters can decide whether you follow the path you want or throw you in another direction. How one second you’d be okay but the next it’s like you’re walking on the ceiling with both feet off the ground. You say “it’s alright; it’s just a grade,” but you feel so left upside down with your head lost somewhere still processing how. It’s uncanny how the grades have a hold on your career that can either make or break it, build or burn it. It decides where you go next in life, and the second those grades come out, nothing else matters. Now, based on those simple letters, it can either feel like a jump without a parachute right into a tidal wave or your first grasp of air after being plunged into deep water for too long. A weight put on or lifted off your shoulder, but there is no doubt that you are no longer driving the car that is your life as it rips away your grasp of the steering wheel and takes full control in both ways. You are the passenger, so you can’t do anything except watch through the window as the world swirls out of existence. “I did my best you say; however, you can’t stop the nagging voice at the back of your brain telling you “you could’ve done better.” “Is that really your best?” it’s not enough”. But it’s never enough. Remember, the grades could go either way, but whatever way they go, I’m sure it’s the right way because if there’s one thing that can comfort me, it’s that all of this is already written down. You were meant to get these grades even if they aren’t what you’d expected. You already got accepted into the college you should be in, and you already have a job with your name on it. The only thing left is to discover what those places are. For now, you are on the right track no matter how bumpy it may seem. It’s what I know for sure.
