I think I sometimes give a little bit too energy into the chips on my shoulders. I try not to give too much energy into doting on them, but the feeling that I’m an underachieving overachiever is never too far from my mind. That said, I also care way too much about my health and am comfortable with revving a little slower than others to let it bother me too much…but every now and then it nips at me once more.
Admittedly, I’m fairly sure I can blame this almost entirely on growing up in a hyper-competitive environment known as Eric Hamber Secondary School. Chances are you’ve met someone else that went there, because Eric Hamber alum? Everywhere. Here’s a shortlist of just some of the people from my year:
- Jessica Trisko – OK, I’m immediately cheating with this first one, but she’s the most obvious example. Jessica started high school with the rest of us but graduated a year early. She skiddadled off to McGill to finish an International Studies Development Studies degree, then did her Master’s in Eastern European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, and is now working on her PhD back in Political Science, according to this profile of her in the Montreal Mirror in March 2007. Oh, and this was before she won the Miss Earth 2007 beauty pageant, one of the world’s top three where such events are concerned, in her mother’s native land, the Phillippines. I won’t even mention the MTV gigs; read up on her in Wikipedia. We always knew she was amazing. Well, at least if we could get over being socially awkward and intimidated as all hell.
- Carlie Wong – Probably best known as a contestant on Project Runway: Canada, (bonus, she blogged the experience). Her bio indicates that she apprenticed with Manuel Mendoza, and she’s certainly been getting a lot of press around town. Incidentally, she does not have a Wikipedia page. Perhaps I will start encourage her minions on Facebook to start one.
OK, so the list is not extensive – mostly because I’ve since discovered that, of course, Wikipedia is already keeping track of this list. And these are just the two that have had press coverage, but I know there are a spate of others who are doing equally excellent things who haven’t, like one of my best friends who’s studied in New York and Paris, or that guy I dated who’s doing his PhD in material science.
Anyway, I know that this is both a blessing a curse. Who doesn’t like being told at the age of 16 that the person sitting next to them is the third-highest scoring math contest entrant in the province, and that one day, I might too be better at something that no one else at the school is good at, even if nobody knows it yet and nobody cares? That’s the stuff of Buffy, yo. At this point, I’m old and mature enough now to take these achievements as what they are – hard-earned, well-deserved accolades of awesome people, and just the start of things to come. No yardstick can measure us all, for no journey as been alike in nearly any way, save the labels.
…at least until the reunion. Can you imagine what the conversations are going to be like at the ten-year reunion though? I went with Richard to his ten-year. Perhaps Facebook will make it less awkward – or maybe things will just be a whole lot less shocking because some of us will have had all ten years to deal with the fact that the journey seems, on the surface, to come so much easier for others.
