In theoryThis theory is based upon how I did in Grade 11. If I were really optimistic, everything would be 95 or higher except English and music., my maths and music should be close to 90, my sciences close to 95, and English should hit around 85. That would give me about 92 going into university. Right now I’m at about 89. Yes, everything is about 2-3 % below my theorizing.

I’m not usually one to go around thinking about numbers in my sleep and how much I need to get how much. I leave that to the crazy ones who cry when they get a 95 on their tests or whatnot. I’ve learned to not proclaim my marks without being asked, as was done so often back in Grade 2 or so. But one thing that really pisses me off sometimes is when I’m slightly disappointed by an 80 and people are telling me to suck it up and be grateful that I’m not like the unfortunate souls that they are, getting 49 or something.

And they’re right. There’s no point in getting riled up over one or two marks, not when it doesn’t matter. But dammit, it does matter now, every single piddly little one of those marks counts now. So I will wallow in my own ineptness and you will not criticize me and accuse me of being an arrogant elitist overachiever.

Am I going to get in to university with an 89? Of course. Cutoffs for my programs are about mid-80s. There are two things that are causing me stress, though. First is the program I want to get into: Software Engineering at UW. This is probably not worth fretting over. The second is scholarships. The only sure shot I have at a scholarship is the Principal’s award: $2000 for a 90 average. Since softeng is a crazy program costing something like $18000 a year, money would be nice to have.

It’s also kind of funny because this is exactly what I asked for just after the Atlanta STM. Just before I started typing up this post, I searched my blog for “stress” in the cool new live search I’ve got going in the sidebar, and out popped this request to God. I, in my logical processes, theorized that I wasn’t relying on God enough because I didn’t need to. So I asked Him, “push me to the limit, make me rely on You.”

As they say, be careful what you wish for — you might just get it.

As you can tell, last year wasn’t too bad. My math and physics could have been higher, but I still got out with that 90 average. It didn’t even occur to me that God, in His inifinite wisdom, would ignore me and make my Grade 12 life difficult. Not mind numbingly hard, but difficult, making me second guess myself. Forcing me to start coming back to Him.

I guess it’s time to start working on my end of the deal and, y’know, rely and trust. That sorta thing.

Scholarships are a funny thing. They all want the same thing. It doesn’t matter if they restrict their requirements to include only Vietnamese people or they have a scholarship just for environmental engineers, all scholarships want two things:

• academic achievement
• community involvement

Usually, high community involvement and leadership kind of implies the person is a good student. That is, those people who are the president of fourteen clubs at their school and another handful outside of school. What I don’t understand is why every single scholarship on the planet wants these leadership qualities. Do they think about what they’re asking on these things?

These people are giving the bulk of the award money to those who they think are going to be the Leaders of Tomorrow. And what kind of jobs will the Leaders of Tomorrow have? We’d assume they’re going to be at the helm of corporations and leading nations. They’re not going to be doing menial labour like designing bridges, folding proteins, or programming away at kernels.

Basically, all the scholarship money is going to all the artsies and the prestegious business program people — the ones who walk around campus in suits and have armed guardtowers around Schulich their school.

Meanwhile, those of us with sharp minds going into engineering, math, or science — programs for the peasantry — don’t really stand a chance against those people who’ve built up five years of volunteering experience in three short years. The worst part is that tuition for these programs costs more than those artsie programs.

One day, if I become rich, I will set up a scholarship based on technical aptitude. I’ll take the guy who can build a cold fusion reactor over the one who volunteers in Uruguay over the summer. I don’t care if you stopped bullying at your school while you were SAC president. Sorry, but the guy who maintains a kernel patchset is going to get the money.