#ap kid problems

for me, it was pretty clear since i was a child that i was going to turn out like that. my teachers always pointed out how organized and hardworking i was. but i remember in 5th grade, the cracks began to show, when my teacher pulled me out of class to talk about a creative writing assignment i'd written, where i talked about the pressures of doing well in school, being a piano prodigy, weekend language school, and still trying to be a normal kid. me- a 10 year old, talking about pressure and stress.

it didn't get much better. a year later i found myself setting alarms for 4:30 in the morning to finish an ambitious reading assignment that the teacher ended up canceling. i was the only student in the class who had finished the book on time, and i had nothing to show for it besides the growing bags under my eyes. this carried on- with an increasing workload and an even more demanding piano repertoire, i found myself having to explain to my parents why 13 year old me was sleeping at midnight and waking up at 4- even in the summer. it wasn't that i wanted to- it was because i felt i HAD to, like the option of failure or quitting had never even crossed my mind. i still remember how i broke down in tears in the car when my dad picked me up from school and i had to tell him i had gotten a B. he had no idea how to comfort me, because he had no idea how much it meant to me. unlike most asian parents, my parents never, ever pushed me to get straight A's or to do this-and-that: it was all self-wrought.

We hate going to tutorials for normal kids because we finish all the handouts before the teacher is done talking.