Signs seem to point to yes. No bragging, but I did get As in every class except B+ freshman Spanish, even in classes most people did poorly in. But there’s a predicament: I don’t feel smart most of the time. Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s a human problem, but I can’t really fully comprehend learning things any faster or slower than I already do. And maybe because I’m impatient, I feel like I learn things too slowly, leading me to believe I’m not smart.

And maybe that’s true, too. That I am not smart. That especially seems to be the case when I compare myself to some classmates who knew more science, had better insights in humanities, and could comprehend higher math. I don’t study very often, but when I do it’s the most intense, “memorize this or die” feeling ever. I can’t tell if my memory is awful (I’ll easily forget deadlines that are more than 2 weeks out) or fantastic (what are the main quirks that differentiate Python 2 and 3? Easy, the print statement is now a function instead of a keyword, range has been replaced by it’s faster brother xrange, float division is now on by default, etc.). Or maybe just extremely specialized for handling certain facts and concepts (math?) but not others (vocabulary, except weirdly enough most SAT vocab words).

Anyways the point I was trying to make but forgot to lead up to is that maybe the differentiator isn’t intelligence, but experience. And that scares me. Because right now, I may have the experience lead over some people, but everyone will catch up given time. So I don’t want to get caught on my butt, and I need to keep working to improve myself in the areas I most care about. Yeah.

I have an essay I wrote a while ago for school about something similar, I’ll post that tomorrow b/c I can’t keep doing this staying up late thing, I wake up too late gosh darn it.