the failings of a student

This fall, I have been feeling like a rather poor student. At first, it felt strange being back at university, and combined with the confusion of having just moved to a new city, I guess I didn’t get started as fast as I should have. And then the whole thing with peace and conflict research was kind of unsettling. I didn’t feel comfortable with the way it was studied, the culture of the field so to say. I guess the study of peace and conflict stems from political science, which has one way of seeing the world. Me, on the other hand, have been trained in the geography field for three years and have become so engrossed in the scientific geographer’s way of thinking that I can’t even stop reading the landscape when I’m on vacation. Especially when I’m on vacation. And now, here I am, in Uppsala being told that the world isn’t to be explained like that at all. That geography isn’t relevant. That place doesn’t matter. It has left me so utterly frustrated. Like everything I’ve studied before doesn’t matter, like I’m a beginner again. I have felt like a really stupid student.

Now, halfway through this term, I guess I should realise I’ve overreacted a little bit. That the fact that I was 0,75 points short of a perfect score on the exam and recieved the highest mark on my conflict analysis with barely any negative comments from the teacher means that I’m not a worthless student, not even when it comes to peace and conflict research. But instead, I focus on the oral presentation when I started stuttering, even though speaking in front of people never used to make me nervous. And all the seminars, when I’m not at all as well articulated and in with the political science lingo as my political science bachellor’s programme classmates. I focus on the bad stuff, and ignore the good. I’ve got to stop doing that.

But I heard them talking about that on the radio the other day. That remembering the bad had had an evolutionary advantage. That, if you remember what you did wrong, you might know how not to fail the next time. During a period in human history when a mistake could mean death, focusing on the bad stuff instead of the good turned out to give you an advantage. And so, that’s how the self-underestimater got to pass on their genes through the genererations, all the way from the horn of Africa to me here, sitting on my couch in my appartment in Uppsala, with my laptop on my lap.

So maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about focusing on the bad stuff. After all, you can’t really fight evolution. Instead, I should be thankful, but not let it make me give up. Because, I’m pretty sure that’s also a gene that has been passed on through the generations: persistance. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here. Without persistance, those very early ancestors of ours would probably have perished in the heat of the eastern African savannah. The day you stop trying to improve, that’s the day life becomes boring.