Embarrassed to Succeed

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in the blog so far, but I'm taking a chemistry class at community college to try and get out of the cubicle world. I haven't taken chemistry since sophomore year of high school, and I haven't been in school since 2005. It's been a bit of a shock to my system to have something to do on Mondays and Wednesdays, especially since my Mondays are completely taken. And having to do homework is the craziest part about it.

"Wait, I've gone to class twice this week. I also have to do this other thing in the rest of my free time? What is this stuff?"

Anyway, I did pretty well with chemistry in high school, and I did pretty well with school in general. I've already graduated with two degrees, and I didn't really anticipate this community college course being overly-challenging. And while it's been harder than I thought, I'm still doing pretty well.

And last week, we got our grades for our first test. Before the professor showed us our grades, she put down the breakdown of how many people received what grade. And it went something like this.

97 - 1
90 - 2
87 - 2
...
47 - 1

Since I'd been doing pretty well, and I felt pretty good about the test, I thought I was probably one of the top grades. I wasn't sure if I was the best grade because there are some smart people in my class, but I had a good feeling.

And as soon as she finished with the breakdown, someone yelled, "Oooh, we need to get the person who got the 97." And everyone laughed, affirming the statement.

I got the 97. And while I was happy with myself and proud of the grade, I lied when people asked. I was asked what my grade was, and I was evasive...simply saying "I didn't get the 97, that's for sure" and "Somewhere between 97 and 47."

And I realize I did this my whole life. Whenever I got a good grade, I'd lie to people about it - even when people didn't know who got what grade. I'd never go too far, claiming I failed or anything, but I tended to "reverse curve" my grade to something a little more average. I don't know if I do it to make everyone else feel better or to make myself feel more "normal" - but since I did it again.

It might simply be that I don't like all of the attention. I don't tend to answer questions in class, even when I know the answer, because I'd be embarrassed if I answered incorrectly. And if I'm labelled as the "smartest kid in the class" - I'm not allowed to make mistakes or ask stupid questions. But if I'm just another guy in the class, that makes things like that okay.

Is it a little sad that I'm embarrassed to be proud of my grades, probably the one thing I've consistently excelled at in my life? Yeah, I'd say so. But it's something I've always done, and apparently I'm not done with it.