Problems with Perfection

I am sitting at my computer in a state of agitation...and frustration.  Maybe these both amount to the same mess of feelings, I'm not really certain.  Regardless, I am having a classic student moment of freaking out over grades.  In the last 24 hour time period I have literally failed (earned scores below 60%) two homework assignments in two different courses.  In the grand scheme of things the number of points lost does not amount to much, but in my mind this is a big deal.  


I used to be a good student.  Scratch that.  I am accustomed to being an excellent student who earned marks at the top of her class.  Not doing well is a new sensation for me and frankly, I don't like it at all.  In case you haven't noticed, I am a type-A perfectionist and I am angry at myself for my shortcomings.  What's a girl to do when her brain is all amped up and it's getting late?  She searches for quotes about perfectionism to try and make herself feel like less of a failure.  In case you're wondering, there are some good ones out there.  Here's what I found that seemed to make sense to me at this very moment...


The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues.  You can't separate them.  They're wedded.  ~Henry Miller


Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.  ~Confucius


Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.  ~Harriet Braiker


The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four.  Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.  ~Winston Churchill


I think Dr. Harriet Braiker really summed up what I'm feeling at this very moment--demoralized...without further motivation to proceed knowing that more failure is imminent.  This is where three years of therapy and six years of teaching must intervene in my pity party.  Don't I tell my students on a regular basis, "it's okay that you didn't get a perfect score as long as you learn from the mistakes you made." ? 


I'm not sure if I've written about this yet, but I have just started studying Italian.  At the start of May I enrolled in an online class through the University of Wisconsin because I wanted to challenge myself and because I hope to someday be bilingual.  In fact, I already have a plan for my second career should I ever decide to quit teaching (more about this later).  As most people who study a language quickly figure out, it isn't as easy as it sounds.  I'm trying to train my brain to forget the Spanish I studied in high school (which, by the way, seems to be coming back at quite an inopportune time) and learn the Italian pronunciation of a bunch of similar looking words.  I'm trying to cram hundreds of new words into my tired, overworked brain.  I'm trying to figure out accent marks--when to use them and which direction they should point.  Most of all, I'm trying to enjoy the process of learning.  


Last week I was standing outside my apartment talking to a friend, all-the-while getting attacked by mosquitos.  When I got back inside I was curious how to say "mosquito" in Italian so I looked it up in my trusty Oxford dictionary.  Then I got a brilliant idea to try to use my new word in a sentence.  From my limited studies I was able to come up with, "Mi piace primavera in Seoul, ma non mi piace zanzara!"  Roughly translated:  "I like spring in Seoul, but I do NOT like mosquitos!"  I posted this as a Facebook status and a few hours later my mosaic teacher in Venice responded (in Italian of course): "Brava colleen la prossima volta parleremo italiano un abbraccio".   I didn't know all of the words she used, so with a little help from Google Translate I was able to figure out that she said, "Good job!  Next time we will speak Italian.  A hug!"  That alone was a small success in my language learning and I really am looking forward to traveling back to Venice next summer where I will be able to practice what I'm learning.  Right now I'm just trying to get over the fact that this isn't going to come easily to me and I am going to have to practice...and fail...before I get to a place where I feel comfortable conversing in another language.


As for the second failed assignment, I think there might be an error in the online answer system so I'm going to do a bit of investigation tomorrow and (if I'm right) send an email to the professor to ask about it.  With only two days of school left in this school year I've got to take off my teacher hat and start thinking like a student again!  I can tell it's going to be a fun, er interesting, summer.


I guess I should wrap things up and head to bed, but before I do I wanted to go back to those quotes I posted earlier.  I know that I'm always going to struggle with the desire to be perfect.  I also know that this is something that will never be achieved.  Henry Miller hit the nail on the head when he said that a man's faults are just as important as his virtues.  The faults and flaws help us humans to be compassionate, endearing, interesting beings.  Being a logical/mathematical/linear thinker is sometimes challenging because, as Winston Churchill notes, life most often does not follow an equation or a recipe.  It is unpredictable, challenging, and confusing, but isn't that what makes life interesting.


Since I'm excited about Italian at the moment, I'll close with this proverb that made me chuckle:  He that will have a perfect brother must resign himself to remain brotherless.