You can stop now. I appreciate the effort, but I really don't think that anything you can say (or anyone can say) will really make me feel comfortable about the future.

Thanks though. :)

I never thought of it that way. Thanks. :)

i COMPLETELY understand that sentiment . . . it's kind of unfortunate that it's happening to you so early, as it didn't start with me until college. i got a 1460 SAT, my undergraduate GPA is 3.80 (if i graduated today i would graduate summa cum laude), and, while i haven't gotten my LSAT score back yet, i feel reasonably confident that it will qualify me for mensa (mensa takes scores from tests other than IQ tests) -- yet i STILL have these constant nagging feelings that i've underachieved given my potential. questions are constantly floating through my head like, will any professor remember me well enough to nominate me to phi beta kappa? should i have tried harder to avoid the few b's i have on my record? will my LSAT score be high enough to get into the law school of my choice? have i gained enough work experience and participated in enough extracurricular activities? could i be doing more with my life generally? ordinarily i come down extraordinarily harshly on myself, and while i realize that this is neither healthy nor productive, i can't seem to reason my way out of it fully. so i feel yr. pain.

also, regarding the "reward for achievement" thing, i always got somewhere in the range of $25-30 per report card from my grandparents pretty much all thru school. i never really cared about the money -- just knowing that i had done well was good enough. but it was always a good reinforcement. i don't get quite the same reaction from my dad -- when i tell him how i've done each semester he'll not infrequently say something like, "i graduated; that was good enough for me" (he took 5 years to get thru college because he screwed around one semester so much that he barely stayed in school). there may be an element of jealousy there, and your parents might have it to some degree too, depending on their own histories; i dunno.

Well, my mother does have an interesting history...

She couldn't afford to finish college so she pressures me to do really well. She doesn't want me to end up like either of her brothers either. One killed himself due to drugs, and the other (who is a very smart guy who went to and finished college at Texas University) is living with his mother delivering pizza. I think my uncle really makes me more concerned about my future. What if I go to college and everything and still end up like him? It is a possibility, and he is living proof.

maybe she's counting standing in line and getting you tickets to SY as yr gift?

I thought that. But then I thought about how I gave her 40 bucks to buy the CD's and how she kept the change. I still really appreciate that she went to do it though. I was suprised that she did it, she usually never does things like that for me.

Stoned Kermit gif is infectious...

Saturnine is witchy & wicked like Stevie Nicks.

you have the right to be pissed off in my book.

no your not a bad person at all! i swear to god - i just finished my first year of a part time college course and got a overall A...(85.7%) and my da was like.... well done or something! i swear to god he didnt believe me i had to actually show him grades and show hime all my continual asessments throughout the year and even then he didnt believe me cuz my NAME wasnt on the top of the page!

An old man's contribution:

I don't remember my parents even KNOWING what my exam results were. In those days (let's just say the 80's) there was a lot less pressure on us to achieve good results. My parents left school in the days when you could almost guarantee having the same job for life when you left school. And that attitude was still present when I left. My dad didn't want me to go to college, he thought I should leave school & get a job.

There's SO much more pressure on young people these days & the workplace (& the world) is a MUCH more competitive place. I really don't envy you.

I guess what I'm saying is perhaps a lot of adults don't appreciate how different things are now and perhaps have the attitude that THEY didn't get a reward for doing well at school, why should you?

Personally I hope that I'll reward my children when they finish school even though I wasn't.

Hope that all makes sense!

Diff'rent Strokes, I suppose

I went to high school during the '80s.