by Wayne McFarlane
(Cobourg, Ontario, Canada)
One cold February morning during my first year of university I came back to my resident room with what I thought was a disappointing mark on a history essay. the mark was a B-. My first essay with this professor was an A.
Then it hit me, "B- is not a bad mark for a guy who use to take the short school bus to a special education class."
Then I thought, "I worked really hard on this essay." At this point in my life I was reading at a rate of 10 pages an hour and my spelling was awful. I put in a lot of time researching and writing my thoughts down. Hard work was some thing to be proud about.
The next thing to hit my mind was, "That professor who gave me a B- was known for being a hard marker. If I could get a B- out of him then I could get good marks from my other professors.
From out of the blue my next thought was, "I'll be on the varsity rugby next year"
It is important to look forward to enjoyable stuff in the future. it can be going to the movies, sharing something on a screen and being with friends. I was also a part of a in school fun volleyball league. Our team was not very good, but I always looked forward to playing and laughing with friends.
The next thought that came to me was, "The girl down the hall thinks I'm cute"
This girl like all young ladies in residence was surrounded by young men. The reason she claimed I was cute was because I was polite and caring. I didn't get drunk or smoke up. She was right being nice counted for something.
My final thought looking at this B- essay was, "I better get back to work."
Being a student who has dyslexia means your constantly doing readings and working on essays. I did schedule time to play sports and be with friends, but it was hard work that got me my two degrees.