What award did you miss out on that came as a surprise to you?
Yesterday I posted a question about awards and personal achievements so I guess that this is a follow up.
There is a good chance that we have managed to come second in various competitions where it came as a real surprise so what awards did you miss out on and still cannot figure out how it happened?
For me I think it had to be back at school where I wanted to win the award for being the best at history in my year and I was sure I was going to win since I had the best marks in my year so I was stunned when someone else was handed the award to add to their collection since they would get them for 4 or 5 subjects each year. I couldn’t work it out, my own teacher couldn’t work it out, but that managed to eat away at me for the rest of the time at school.
So did you ever come second to someone and are still confused as to how? Did you storm away in a mood or did you sit there like the oscars with a fake smile pretending you were happy for them when in actual fact you wanted to throw things at them?
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Ugh! I missed the Tag Heuer Watch competition (at work) by one point. I am fed up to this day. Plus it was a male and female watch pair. So I was planning to give the other to a guy I know :(
In my last year at primary school everyone said that I would be Dux. I had no idea what this was but apparently it is what they called the primary 7 pupil with the best exam results. I can’t remember who actually was Dux but it wasn’t me. It was quite a bewildering time and I can’t remember any feelings of disappointment. I was leaving primary school forever to travel four miles to a school where everyone was much bigger and more clever and this filled my thoughts at the time.
Ugh, don’t remind me, hahaha. Junior year of high school they start handing out scholarships. We were at the ceremony and they started reading the description for a $10,000/year scholarship to RPI (at the time, a school I was very interested in). The award was to be given to the student with the highest GPA in the areas of math and science. I knew it was going to be me. It’s one of those awards that isn’t subjective, right? My math/science average was more than 100 due to weighted grades. Like an arrogant asshole I was practically halfway out of my seat when they announced the winner…and it wasn’t me. You know who it was? It was this kid in my precalculus class who had no clue what was going on most of the time, and who I had witnessed cheating on tests. There is absolutely no way, even with the cheating, that his GPA was higher than mine. No. Way. Oh, I was fuming!
In hindsight I’m glad because it may have swayed me to go to RPI and then I wouldn’t be where I am. And I love where I am.
I was in grade school when the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness started. Everyone knew I was the worst athlete in the class. (I still have a complex about it in my 50’s.) When the final scores came out I realized that if I had given only a little effort I might have achieved the award. I was only a few points off.
I still wonder how that award might have changed my self esteem.
edit: I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently the Council was started earlier. I could swear it was presented to us as brand new. Memory plays strange tricks on us.
I was skating through an accounting class, and slacked off the last 2 months. I had the A locked up. I hadn’t realized I nearly won the Accounting award, which would have meant a scholarship.
A nobel prize in Physics. Marie Curie beat me to it.
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