Disclaimer: This is not a "Brag Letter/Post."
These past two weeks were killer for Britney. She has kept a solid "A" in her anatomy class, but since she was still only halfway through her possible points, the fact that she still had 500 points to earn scared her to pieces. She had come so far, and only made it halfway--what if she screwed everything up this last half? The first week, she had a lecture exam and then the second week she had a lab exam. The lecture was on action potentials in skeletal and smooth muscle, but she worked through it fine. The lab exam was going to be tricky though. Usually, lab boosts Britney's grade and so she really needed to perform well to ensure her hopeful "A". Britney had to memorize all the muscles on both the models and cadavers, along with their respective actions, functions, insertions, and correct spellings. Not exactly an easy task in such a short amount of time. So, she prayed, liked hard, and she studied, even harder. She studied at home, at open lab, in the car, in the hallways, pretty much everywhere. And when it came time for test time, there was nothing more to be done than to suck it all in (hopefully like a sponge) and take the exam. Britney went through the questions in about half an hour, which was a little longer than usual. She felt confident she did well, but not sure how well. She could have totally been envisioning the wrong side of the forearm, or gotten confused between the actions and insertions..not to mention spelling. But, once it was done it was done and she was satisfied that is was so totally done. This was Friday. By Monday, no grade up. Tuesday morning, still no grade up. Same with Tuesday night. But Wednesday morning, there it was. Staring her in the face. Disbelief. There is was: a 104. Not only did she get every last one right, she also got all the bonus right too.
This surged a new realization and awareness into Britney's brain. She's no genius. She can't just look at a cadaver once and know everything. The words of Pres. Clark during a devotional last year came into her mind: (Something along the lines of) There are no geniuses or people that are born smart. They are successful because they have effective work habits and they stick to them. She realized that her efforts and through learning by the Spirit she was able to know the answers.
So, her message to all: There are no geniuses, just people who know how to put the time into studying. We all have the potential to be great. It just depends on how badly we want to push ourselves to be our greatest. And once we are consistently learning, it becomes easier to learn and less of a struggle. Knowledge is power. Power to control and not be controlled by killer tests.
