6A Learning from the Past

            It was my sophomore year of high school, right in the heart of midterms, and my dad was admitted to the hospital with a leg infection that later turned into a blood clot. I was already freaking out about my pre-calc midterm, because I have never been the best math student, but after having this happened I found myself becoming more and more distracted. I spent most of my time up at the hospital, and tried to use that time to study, but it just wasn’t working. My dad had already been on blood thinners because he has had a previous blood clot, so knowing how serious that one was before made it impossible for me to focus on anything else besides that.

            My test was in three days, and my dad had been in the hospital for five already, and although we spent the entire class period reviewing for the midterm, I found my mind wandering and never heard a word that my teacher had said, and I knew I was in big trouble. One the day of the test I knew I wasn’t prepared, and that idea was made clear when I was handed the test and I was only confident in about 10 of the answers out of 100. A few days later my teacher and our tests back, and on mine there was a giant “F”.

            After having that experience I realized that even though there are hard times going on in my personal life, the rest of the world is still going on, and I can’t let it affect what goes on in the other parts of my life, especially my academic. When finals came around I made sure that whatever was going on outside of my school life, I didn’t let it distract me from my studying. As a result of that I was able to get a “B” on my math final, which I was very thrilled about!