“Hey, buddy, can I borrow a pen?”
Your immediate response: “Oh, no.”
Despite this, you offer a tight-lipped smile, your time and energy to unzip pockets of your bag and then hand the pen over to me oh-so-casually, while I clutch it like it’s the last drop of water in the desert that I call “my sorry state as the problem child of this and/or every classroom I have ever been in since preschool.”
Opening my backpack, the sound of the many crumpled balls of paper sounds like sea waves crashing on shore. Students look around to find the noise, most likely thinking, “Oh, it’s her.”
I am very forgetful. I am also quite often late to everything. I don’t really have a good excuse or any excuse at all. I don’t even know what to say anymore.
One time, I met a friend of a friend who told me we were classmates, and I laughed, saying, “Oh, I’m always late to that class.”
He stretched an awkward smile on his face with his eyebrows raised, saying, “Yeah. You really are.”
I have had professors give me a talking to. I am a college student. I should not be placing myself in situations where professors even have to think about giving me a talking to, let alone where they actually initiate the talking to.
I really do not have any rational excuses or reasons for my behavior. I can’t ever gain a sympathy card. But that’s okay. For now, let me at least try to help you understand what may be the causes of my dumb behavior. They may also explain the behavior of other problem children you may know.
People don’t believe me when I talk about how bad my memory is. I have had people tell me, “If you just cared more, you would remember.” I have had professors give me tips such as if I write in my books and take notes, I should be fine.
But my memory is so bad that it impresses even me.
I am not only bad with names, but also with faces. I am the worst waitress you will ever have. If there is a table of two people on one side and two people on the other, and one person on each side switches sides, I will think both people left.
“Who are these new people? Oh, God! Did the other people dine and dash?!” I think quietly to myself with an awkward, panicked expression.
I most likely will not recognize you outside of whatever environment I met you in, whether that is a classroom or an organization or anything else. If you change your hair, I’m sorry if I don't remember who you are. It’s nothing personal, I swear.
It takes me months to remember the name of someone I do consider a friend, and there are people who I have known for years now whose names I still can’t place.
No one ever decides to be the problem child of the classroom, and even after realizing that one is the problem child, it takes time to fix whatever one really is – whether that’s a bad listener, a bad memorizer, a bad attendance policy follower, a bad whatever.
Believe it or not, I never decide to come late to class. I never think, “Well, I’ll just sleep some more, and being a few minutes late won’t matter.”
And, of course, being late doesn’t just happen. I don’t walk out the door, and then go through a time warp and – whoops, late for class. I’m not saying that.
I know I’m not a great student. I know I need to have a pen (etc.) with me when I go to class, but what goes through my mind in the morning is “Don’t forget about your binder – don’t forget about your notebook – don’t forget about your books – don’t forget about this and that and forever and on and on – and, oh no! I’m late to class, again!” Finally in class, I realize I forgot something. I always forget something.
In high school, I had friends who did not try in class, but got A’s in everything because they just had the right mind for the learning environment. One guy I knew fell asleep in every one of his classes but aced every test because he has the kind of brain that was sponge-like and perfect for the learning environment.
Meanwhile, for me, despite doing whatever necessary work, I have had teachers who believed that I just didn’t do the reading. They ask me questions like, “Who specifically said this?” and “Who specifically did this?” Even the merciful teachers who ask the most general questions like, “Just tell me what you remember from the reading.” But my mind just blanks.
I will never fail to fail every reading quiz I am given no matter how carefully I read the text and no matter how thorough my notes are.
“If you just cared more, you would remember,” people tell me.
Yet I have days where I think my car is stolen because I can’t find it. My car will be right next to me, while I panic, wondering if it got towed. Or I will forget that I drove to campus, so I walk back to my apartment and the next day find a parking ticket proving to me how incompetent I can be.
I have no excuses for my behavior when it comes to arriving late or just not being able to do well on a reading quiz.
And in the end, no one cares about excuses when you arrive late to class, and you keep forgetting the things that are so obvious.
You keep forgetting to do the assignments that are put so straightforward that obviously everyone is on the same page except you. And you just don’t get the information, or you just don’t even know why you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
So, thank you for letting me borrow your pen for an hour when I come to class late.
Thank you when I don’t know how to explain why I’m just not doing well.
Thank you for being patient with me when you’re really just frustrated and confused with me.
I have no excuses because there is no good excuse. So, all I can say is thank you.
