My stomach was full of fear and dread, the black tops of the lab stations glaring at me. I had never felt comfortable or confident in a science classroom. Every day was a struggle, furthering my anxiety from my inability to understand the content, from blanks and wrong answers to my immense confusion on tests. After months of my escalating dread for the class, in the middle of a particularly confusing test, I simply decided I was done. I chose to write question marks on every answer, set my pen down, and sit back in my chair as everyone else slaved away. I watched the soft disappointment on my teacher's face as I turned in my unanswered test. “Would you like to retake this?” my teacher asked reprovingly. “I don't think I'd do much better on it,” I replied in a skeptical tone as I turned away without giving a second thought. The worst part was, I didn't feel ashamed; in fact, I was quite pleased with my decision and thought everyone else fools, dedicated to the school system. Over the next few months I lost all motivation. My laziness and hatred for chemistry spread to the rest of my classes. My idleness was spreading like a disease and my whole life had become a swamp of unintelligible school assignments. I remember struggling to crawl out of the mess I had created for myself one night. I sat at the table attempting to understand the chaos that was my homework. The clock ticked incessantly on the mantle, the light above me buzzed, every noise piercing into my mind like pinpricks. The feeling of inadequacy irked me, the sound of cars driving by seemed taunting; everything around me infringing on my mental state. I was interrupted abruptly as the lead in my pencil cracked and shattered as if under the pressure of my thought. The shards glissaded across the paper and in that moment, it wasn't just broken lead, but my own fractured truth. The shattered pieces ruled over the paper like stress over my life. All I had to do was wipe away the lead; I needed a clean slate and this time I vowed not to mess it up for myself. Following the decision to end my unproductive torture, the next semester was a struggle, but my grades stayed up. I tried my best to stay on top of my work and got help when I needed it. I really put myself into what I was learning for the first time by asking questions, spending extra time at home, and improving my level of self-advocacy. My new goal was not to get through chemistry, but to excel at chemistry and that's just what I did. My previous test score of 56% from the first semester turned into a 96% and even (my crowning achievement) 104%. While others around me were getting B's and C's, I couldn't find anyone in the class with a higher grade than me and in my head, that seemed simply impossible. I had never truly lived up to my academic capabilities until then. At the end of second semester I finished school with a 97% in chemistry and for the first time in my life, I felt in control of my academic outcome. During this process of improvement, I discovered that I had been limiting myself to being what I knew rather than discovering one of my most impressive talents. Today, chemistry is my favorite school subject and I'm now in quantitative chemistry and plan to proceed into higher levels. I would've never discovered my love for chemistry if I had continued to choose to believe that I was bad at science because I didn't understand it easily at first. I am never just going to be good at something unless I choose to make myself good at something. The primary thing that has improved me academically is the realization of that. I can't live my whole life thinking I'm bad at something or I'll never be good at it because I'm not giving myself the opportunity to work at it and learn. This idea hasn't just changed my chemistry grade, but my whole life. I have dedicated myself to be the best that I can be every day. No matter how impossible something may seem, I will put all that I have into it because that is who I choose to be.