To fight a war

Ok bloggers, this is a long story so bear with me...

I remember this time when I had to miss class because I was sick and unfortunately, the final biology test was that day; the teacher gave me the option to do an oral test on the next class but with the amount of stuff that entered on the exam it seemed like an impossible task.

The first thing I did was asking around my classmates what the topics on the test were or if they remembered a difficult question to have as my reference, but when I explained that I was taking an oral test they almost gave me their condolences and honored my brave effort in facing such a thing. I already knew that she was a strict teacher but apparently, there were rumors about people failing her class because of her extremely difficult oral tests, I was shocked…and afraid. I needed to take this seriously, so I began my studies.

Days passed fast and I wasn´t learning fast enough, I read and read but couldn´t retain as much information as I needed, on the last day after the exam I was a mess, I had all the info, the diagrams, but mixed up on my head and I was unable to explain it through. I remember being like this on lunch break when my best friend snapped, she looked at me and said “you could draw it…like that time in 8^th grade where you helped me with history and made up all sort of funny situations with the historical people, why don´t you do the same and draw it?”. Never up to that moment it occurred that I could just combine drawing and science, these two things that seem so far apart… so I began drawing, not just reading them in order to memorize them, but actually analyzing the topics as I tried to explain all these phenomena with just comics and drawings, and slowly I began to understand the notes, that they had a reason and it was all connected, that night I finally felt like I was ready.

The test was after class, on the 12^th year classroom (I was on 10^th) and I was nervous, but I forced myself to go in… the teacher was talking to a few students and, as they were curious about what I was doing there the teacher happily explained my situation and let them stay and watch my torture.

But to their surprise, I was answering correctly, again an again while the face of the teacher changed, and with clear excitement stopped for a moment to better think the last question, saying she will make me fail at least one. The last was the toughest but even, I answered correctly.

The teacher stared at me and after a moment of silence said with a smile “congratulations young lady, you have a 7.0” (highest rank) and the senior students applauded me (like, for real).

It wasn´t that big of a life achievement but for me… it was the sweetest victory, and ironically, biology ended up becoming my favorite class.