Passion For A Talent And Actually Having That Talent: The Same Or Not?

Frustration. It consumes me all over. I just wish, wish, wish that I could succeed at everything I love to do. Whether it be writing, acting, playing hockey...anything! Whenever I try, I seem to come so close and then it's whisked away, out of my reach.

Hockey:
I love hockey. I love playing it, I love watching it, I love ice skating, I love running, I love everything about it. But do I ever get to play? No. Of course not. I'm a Jewish girl. If my school doesn't have a hockey team, I'm out of luck. I can't play in a secular league like my brothers can. In high school, I started hockey intramural teams with a couple of people since we tried starting a league - and the league actually got started! But then my school wouldn't join - yes, the school who helped pioneer this league - because some of the coaches would be men. Admittedly, I wouldn't have felt comfortable playing hockey in front of a male coach even if we had joined, but still. It's the concept. The fact that a Jewish girls high school hockey league was started partly due to my high school inquiring about it and then we didn't even get to join. So now I get to watch my brothers play and they all totally forgot that I enjoy it too. At games they ask, "do you know what that penalty was? It's called crosschecking." They think I don't know how to play. They think, because I'm a girl, that I don't really care about it, either. Well, true, I'm not all obsessed with the stats of the season, but I do enjoy watching and I wish I could play.

Acting:
My God, I've loved acting ever since I knew how to play pretend. I mean, people may not think of that as acting, but that is what it is, really. Kids getting together and pretending to be people they aren't and acting out scenarios. House. That's acting. All imagination games are a form of acting. I think my love of acting and my love of stories go hand in hand. I love stories, I love telling stories, I love writing stories, I love acting out stories. So in day camp when some people put on Beauty and the Beast, I was entranced. Then in school we started putting on class plays. There was the siddur play and the chumash play which I remember having to say lines in Hebrew that I didn't even understand. I think that happens to all kids. But then in third grade, we put on a real play. Well, not really a real, real one, but a made up one suitable for third graders. It was actually really, really, really corny, about a girl who is a new student and the kids aren't nice to her, so she stays home from school and these people, like, Mrs. Tzeddaka, Mr. Chessed, and Mrs. Middot or something come and teach them how to be nice, then the new girl comes back the next day and everyone's friends. Yay! I wanted so badly to have an actual character, but no. I got to be narrator. Well, fine. I was eight years old at the time. All the parts were really small anyway, even the real ones, except the new girl, probably.

In fifth grade, we put on this mix of Broadway scenes and songs. Luckily, I had a small part in that. I almost didn't, until the play lady (who no one really liked) remembered she forgot to cast a duet part (oddly, since it was really just one character, but they decided they wanted it to be a duet). So I got to be Liat from South Pacific (which I've still never seen) along with an Israeli girl and we sang "Happy Talk" while doing these really weird hand motions. I also got to be a kid from The King And I because I was short and little.

That was the end of my real acting experience. In sleep away camp, the oldest main campus division always put on a play in August. When I was in the youngest division, they put on Annie and I got really antsy and couldn't wait until four years later when I'd get to be in the play. Every summer I'd look forward to it, until the year I was going to be in the oldest division. I can't even really complain about this. My parents decided to take us all to Israel in August, so I was there for the first month, but not for the play month. So after years of anticipation and waiting, I didn't get to be in it after all.

In high school in ninth grade, I tried out for Drama in the school production. Okay, you have to understand, everyone makes the school production. Everyone. Well, everyone, that is, except me. I must be wearing a sign on my forehead that says, "don't let me in your play" because it's still unfathomable to me why I didn't make it. Am I that awful of an actress?

In eleventh grade, the juniors and seniors actually put on a real play. We did "Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie. I made the play, somehow, but I had the smallest part. Oh, I had a ton of stage time. Probably the most stage time out of everyone. Except my entire part was to just sit on a stool and occasionally announce a witness or something. I was the court officer. That's not even a real character! It involved no acting whatsoever. Just sitting there with no expression and trying desperately not to laugh when the audience did. I couldn't even involve myself in acting so that I wouldn't laugh. I mean, I was just sitting there for two hours!

Then of course, there was this year, where I wasn't really in the play except for a line or two from the audience.

Writing:
I remember the day I decided I wanted to be an author. I was in the younger grades of elementary school and I was thinking about how I loved making up stories but that I couldn't grow up and be a storyteller because that's not a real job. I also wanted to be the person who made up movies (which is a real job, but at that young age, I didn't know that. I thought the actors just did it themselves, like when I played imagination games with my friends). So then I realized, if I couldn't tell stories, I could at least write them and make books. So I resolved to be an author when I grew up. From then on, I wrote all these random stories. Some are actually embarrassing, but hey, I was young.

Everyone came to accept the fact that I was a writer. It became part of my identity. The problem was that as I got older, it was sort of expected that I would do well in English class. And I did. I definitely did. But when I took AP English Comp., well, let's just say I did embarrassingly poorly on the AP. So much so that I would avoid the teacher the next year whenever I saw her in the halls. In twelfth grade AP English Lit., however, I did very well in class and decently on the AP. So I figured the year before was just a fluke.

My first semester at Stern, I took English Comp. (of course, since I did so atrociously on the AP and didn't get credit for it). I got all A's. The teacher really liked my writing and it boosted my confidence a lot. I thought, "I can do this! Piece of cake!" Of course, I also didn't really feel like I was learning anything. I'm not so sure that class was for me. In any case, I thought I was a good writer and was quite content with that.

Last semester, I took an English class where I didn't do so hotly on the paper. The teacher told me it sounded like I was writing to a hostile audience. The only explanations I can give for why that might be is because A. I had just had a fight with someone right beforehand about, of all things, Beowulf (Grendel, to be specific) and I think I was extremely protective of my own ideas and thoughts after that, and just very defensive in general. B. I had been told at least once or twice before that my writing sounded too wishy-washy, like I wasn't confident with what I was saying. I guess I, er, took it too far to the other extreme. Apparently. But anyway, even that was okay because afterwards, a lot of people told me that particular teacher is a hard grader, so that was alright then. I wasn't the only one in that boat.

Today I got back two papers from a teacher who really likes me a lot and who I like a lot and in whose classes I have been doing extremely well. But on the papers, though I didn't do horrendously, I didn't do as well as I'd have liked and, what hit me more than the grade was the fact that she didn't think my writing was good. She said it was weak and not developed. She asked me who I had for comp. and when I told her, she said, "well, you got something out of that class but not enough." But I wanted to insist, No, darn it, I didn't get anything out of that class and I was getting all A's! So how could I get this grade now and be told my writing is weak and my arguments undeveloped? Why is my writing not consistent? Or, more importantly, why can I not do excellently the majority of the time on English papers? Why, why, why??? I love to write, it is my passion, it is what I'm identified with. It's what I thought I was good at. Sure, creative writing and paper writing are two different things. But I always thought I was good at writing papers, too.

Why is it that whenever I fall in love with a talent or an activity, I can do average, I can do okay, but I can't do well? I can't enjoy it, sometimes I can't even get the chance to properly do it, and I can't feel pride in it.

It makes me wonder just what I am good at at all. I know this post is sort of whiny, but bear with me. It's written out of pure frustration. I almost wanted to cry when I got back to my room after getting back my papers today. No one has ever told me my writing was weak before. That I need better choice of diction. What is wrong with me?