EXPECTATIONS AND FAILURES

Jeremy Butterfield once said that, “Grammar is often a generic way of referring to any aspect of English that people object to.” It’s true ’cause I got zero in our Grammar quiz. Like my other classmates, I was expected to dominate it because I am an English major. But, heck, I failed.

I never liked it when people put high hopes on me or in everything I do. I don’t like it when I have to push myself beyond my limit just because I was expected to do great in my most intelligent way. I hate it because I always ended up failing.

In my almost three years of being in college, I can say that I have always been a diligent student trying hard to pass all my subjects every semester. I don’t want to fail. I should not fail. I have always been expected to stay on the honor list ever since I started schooling– yes, unfortunately. Well, expectations became helpful to me in a way that I should strive for the better to be appreciated. It became a challenge to me to get appreciation and so I worked hard to avoid failures.

Through years of being an English major, I learned to live up on expectations that even myself don’t want to, in the first place. Who wants to bombard his/her mind with morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and phonology? Other English majors might say, “Yes, I want!” But me, NO WAY!

Just because I am majoring in English doesn’t mean that I am a Grammar genius, a walking English dictionary, a know-it-all girl about the titles and authors of all the English novels in this world and whatever it is that students majoring in this subject are expected to be. I study English but don’t expect me to know “everything” about the language — its forms, structures or detailed meaning. I even got 2.75 in our spelling quiz in Advanced English Grammar.

I absolutely know that I should specialize in English even the smallest detail of it, but I just can’t, though I desire to. Who doesn’t want to master their field of study even if they never decided to choose them, in the first place? I want, yes, even though ABE is not exactly the course that I liked to take in college. I didn’t have a choice! There were no enough slots in my preferred courses and ABE seems to be the closest course that I should take to get my target jobs in the future. (P.S. I am not defending myself from getting low grades in my quizzes, mind you.)

English is not for me. I learned to accept this fact ever since the first leg of my journey as an ABE student. I was never a Grammar aficionado. I’m getting difficulty in finding grammatical errors when it is the main subject of the exams. I don’t know how to pronounce some English words. I am not interested in reading classic novels and never fond of watching English movie series which are so unlikely to a student majoring in this field. I am more into contemporary and not so mainstream literary pieces.  I hate speaking in front of a crowd especially when I have to express it in straight English, with fluency and accent. I never liked debate and argumentation in English. I hate studying Grammar and see how stupid I am in my vocabulary.

Of course, there were times that I enjoy my stay in the university with a course that I never expected myself to take. Studying English is exciting in its own way. I never imagined myself being one of the organizers of an English camp wherein I have to communicate with my American professor whom I am always with in almost every day of the preparation and even during the said event. But I actually commending myself from going through those rough days of organizing everything co’z I did it. I never imagined myself idolizing depressed and incest-involved authors while attempting to imitate the way they write their poetry. I want to be like them dominating their own literary works upbringing their freedom to express themselves. I never expect myself into looking forward to take a Master’s Degree after I finish this course hoping I could also be like my professors who are really good in teaching English.

I hope that I will never achieve failure with this one because after all, I STILL HATE GRAMMAR. But, hey, I’m doing my best to give it a try. Hopefully, my professor in AEG will be considerate enough not to expect something ‘big’ from us.

P.S. I downloaded pdf files of selected books my professor have suggested. Whew! :3