Archives: November 2010

Forever failing

By Dan Wilton

As I write this I am pretty annoyed with myself, my old school and the base ten numerical algebraic system. Let me explain...

I’ve just started college and life has taken a rather strange turn. The first week or so has been alright but it’s been the usual struggle of trying to remember all the things from before the summer holiday. Unfortunately, one such thing was the algebra for my further maths (yes, I took further maths- go on, laugh!) I haven’t done maths for almost a year (I took it early so I’ve been doing stats instead). I’ve forgotten everything. I had a test in algebra. I thought I knew it. I didn’t. I made a fool of myself. I am now reduced to writing short, angry sentences.

The problem is, I feel that I’ve made myself seem stupid and given my tutor (what I hope is) a false impression. It’s now going to be pretty hard to catch up with the rest of my uber-clever maths group and the thought of going back into maths is filling me with dread. It’s just a shame I’ve got double maths… every… single… day…

In terms of my life, I often fail to live up to the expectations set for me: I didn’t quite do as well as expected in my GCSEs, or in my SATs before that. My skills and abilities often seem to be overestimated and it leaves me feeling pretty disappointed and angry when I don’t quite prove myself. I guess we all feel like that at times - like we’ve failed.

The Bible is littered with ‘failures’ and it’s amazing that many of them even made it into a footnote of God’s holy book! Take most of the people Christianity is based on- would you think God would use a murderer, a hated tax collector, an adulterer or a thief? Do we think of the people in the Bible by theirs flaws, or do we instead think of what they have done in God’s name?