Peripheral Blindness by Tanvi

Peripheral Blindness by Tanvi - December 2022 Scholarship Essay

With one hand resting on my backpack strap and the other scrolling through the gradebook app on my phone, I stood leaning on the wall outside my economics teacher’s room. It was almost 2:45, so I guessed the teacher would be arriving soon. I knew I needed this review session; I hadn’t gotten time to go over anything for this class in favor of studying for the others, convincing myself that this afternoon would be plenty.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my teacher returning from bus duty. We waved, he unlocked the door, and I strode into action immediately, pulling out my notes from class and practice tests on my laptop. He glanced at me with a mix of pride and concern. I paid him no mind–I had more pressing things to worry about.
The last few months of this year were going to be different from the previous years’; I knew that when the school year had begun. Both my freshman and sophomore year AP exams had been purely online and isolated to one per year. As a junior, I had decided to take on five AP exams, all of them back-to-back and all of them ominously difficult. And as the final weeks of April began closing in, my decision was starting to diminish my previously determined disposition.
The minutes dragged on and I sat in the classroom, solving and correcting problems as I felt my face begin to heat up. The words on the paper in front of me began to shift in and out of focus, and desperately I tried to ignore it all until I finally decided to ask a friend for advice. She put a hand to my forehead and immediately told me to go home, that my skin was burning. I assured her I could carry on, there was only an hour left anyways. But as I reached for my pencil once again, my fingers trembled. I could barely scratch out a single number.
When I did eventually go home, the thermometer read an alarming temperature of 100.5°, one that prompted my mother to physically restrain me from getting out of bed and away from the rest I so direly needed. But my mind wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about how I felt. I still had so many units to study, so many practice essays to write, so many formulas and graphs to memorize. I couldn't afford to admit that I was sick. The problem was, my body had admitted it on my behalf.
I did the best I could to balance resting and studying in the following weeks. My desk was littered with tissues and mugs of tea, and my nights were sleepless and filled with coughing fits and sniffles. I somehow made it to the week of the exams, only with my mother deeming me alright enough to go take them.
I got sick again about a week after the exams. It was my body’s way of punishing me for all I had done to punish it.
Looking back, the weeks leading up to the 2022 AP exams were possibly the unhealthiest I’ve ever felt in my life. I had never been more stressed about anything, and the sickness it had caused made everything immeasurably worse. Though it was a terrible way to learn it, a lesson was gained from the experience. I made a promise to myself after that. My ambition, as wonderful a quality it is, too often blinds me to the very obvious problems just beyond my line of sight. While I was constantly looking up and ahead, my knees had been giving out underneath me. My promise was this: to see the periphery. I would let my ambition dream the wildest fantasies it wants, but I have to be the one that wakes up and sees both that dream and the reality in front of me. I don’t want to lose my tenacity, but I don’t want that very tenacity to make me foolish.
The 2023 AP exams are not too far away. And they will be my chance to prove that my promise can be upheld.