for lack of a better title, I’M BACK!

I’ve been sitting on this entry for a while… I wanted to wait and post it after I caught up with reading everyone else’s journals. But if I don’t post it now, I’ll never be able to. Please forgive me if I’m way behind on reading you– I am trying.

“I’m going to get a 40. Maybe a 50. I’ll be overjoyed if I get a 70,” he muttered. We were waiting to get our test back, and with every grade he mentioned, the butterflies in my stomach multiplied.

When the tests finally came back, he looked at my grade before flipping his exam over to look at his own.

All of a sudden, he jumped up from his seat and pointed at me. “I beat you! I beat you!” He punctuated each word with a stab in my direction.

All of the sudden, my 86 (a B+ without any curve, a good grade for anyone, especially for someone who neglected studying until an hour before the test) seemed pitiful. Four points had destroyed my day.

The thing is, he acted like it was a Nobel Prize. Like this was the only test that counted, and the other exams we’d taken (the ones where I had beaten him by at least 5 points each time) were no longer an issue.

Why am I the standard? He doesn’t think much of my intelligence; after all, I’m a girl and not suited for such a complicated field. It’s as though he was searching for validation that I have only been faking the past two semesters.

I try to remember why we’re friends.

We hate each other, although it’s a nice kind of hate. We help each other on homework, console each other after the exam 90% of the class failed, and take turns going to class and getting the notes for the other person.

I’m the brains behind the operation. At least in the sense that I take most of the notes and do most of the homework and he copies it. I also can charm the pants (not that way, sickos) off our professors so they give us hints on how to do our work.

He is the guy who has all the old homework, or is will to ask a complete stranger what they got for problem 3 in the event that my brains don’t work. He will also buy me 99 cent french fries when I’m starving and have no money.

So maybe we don’t hate each other. It’s probably just a sort of healthy competition thing. After all, I spent an extra 3 hours studying after that incident.

Even though I know – and I say this with no ego- I’m smarter than he is.