This is Only the Beginning

It was a long four days for me, the first week of school.
I guess my mind was not ready to move on from last school year and the summer. Sophomore year was challenging but I have expected it when I signed up for the classes. Junior year is overwhelming, I have lost myself in my confidence, pride, and ego.

Perhaps it is true junior year is the hardest, most important year of high school...I can feel this is my chance to shine or to rot...the ultimately choice is mine...

I have not foreseen the burden of responsibility I have signed up for, let it be vice president position I signed up for, let it be my own club I want to create, let it be the three AP classes...

Perhaps it is finding someone better than me, someone who I want to become, someone who is the better version of myself in my classes that defeated me. I know there are millions of other people smarter than me, but they all have different backgrounds and I respect their achievements.  But this new girl, this new transfer student, have almost the exact same background as me, she is like another me, but better.

I felt beaten, I can see my failures through her and I am being reminded of them constantly by her presence. Her achievements, intelligence, diligence, friendliness, and boldness are what I could have, if I had only worked harder and not be afraid of speaking in class and make a fool out of myself. It is like living with the dream version of myself in reality...I am jealous of her qualities and mad at myself for not being her, for not pushing myself to go the extra miles in the past.

I always want to be the best. My math and science teachers from middle school like me. Freshmen year, my biology teacher wrote in my yearbook, that I am one of the best students she ever had. I thought it would my math teacher who could have said that, but no, it was the strictest teacher I had. Last year, I tried hard to make my chemistry teacher like me. He did, but I wasn't the best. I know it, but still, I was disappointed. It turned out it was my history teacher who said I was his best student of the year. Again, it was a pleasant and moving surprise.

Teachers liked me because they saw me as the smart yet hardworking student. This year I hope my teachers will like me, especially I need their recommendations for college application next year. I want to be someone's best student again. I am still stuck in the momentum of me being the best. I need to start fresh again and try not to impress anyone. Let teachers see me as me. I don't need to be the best from my junior class. There are already two teachers who believe in me. And that is more than I can ask for.

Don't be jealous of others. Just be the best version of myself. There will always be someone better and smarter than me like the transfer student, but there will always be someone who can see that I tried my best too like my previous teachers.

Junior year, I don't need my current history, physic, math, and English teachers to think that I am the best of the class. I am not. I am just the best of who I can be. And this, is only the beginning.