Stupidity might be contagious

Growing up, in school, I was never the teacher's pet. Much to the contrary... Pretty much all my teachers hated my guts.

Not because I used to sit at the back of the room and talk during the class. Or because I used to send out notes to my friends and throw it across the classroom. Or because I used to blurt out jokes out of nowhere... No, it was because I did all of that, but they couldn't set an example out of me. Because when they interrupted my chitchat and asked me a question, or called me up front to the blackboard and told me to solve a problem, I always got it right. Always.

In Brazil, you're graded from 0 to 10, equivalent to 0 to 100 here (basically, just a factor of 10 instead of 100). And all the way from when you first start school until the end of junior high (somehow that ended in high school), the first 9 points (90% of our grade) are based on your grades -- how well you did on your exams, homeworks, assignments, group projects, etc. The last point (the remaining 10%), is based on your behavior -- as in well-behaved, quiet kids, got those 10% guaranteed, regardless of how the rest of their grades were like. Me? My report card was full of 9's -- with exception of physical education, where I always got 10 (after all, interacting is part of it), for the rest of the subjects, I would ace all my exams, my group projects and presentations were always the top one in class, but I was just never the best student, because I never, ever, got that last point for good behavior.

Try to explain that one to your parents... They didn't get why I just didn't shut up and aimed for a perfect report card.

Needless to say, the kids I hung out with, were not the so called A students. They would get bad grades, have to stay for summer school, many flunked at the end of the year (and in Brazil when you flunk, you have to do the whole year again, every single class over again, even the ones you passed -- even if you flunked by a tenth of a point in only one subject. Yes, repeating a year is not unusual over there).

In Brazil there's no such thing as the "popular" kids, as you have it here. So I talked to pretty much everyone in school -- everyone knew me, I was not one known for being quiet (surprise, surprise), but my closest friends, were the ones that made all the noise with me.

So when school was over, I was excused from all our final exams (if you had 80% average on the subject, you were excused from taking the final in that subject), but all my friends stayed behind, for another 2 weeks because of the finals. Then, of course, they would all stay for another month to study again, to bring their average over 60% in order to pass to the next grade. I was (and still am) one of the few people I know who never had to stay for "recuperação" (recuperation would be the direct translation?) in my life. Most people got to stay in at least one subject each year, if not more. Even the smart, quiet students, sometimes had a class they were weak on.

(Those students, by the way, in Brazil are called "CDF" short for "Cú de Ferro" which means "asshole of steel" -- you know, from sitting and studying for so long, they must have some damn strong assholes.)

I was never one to study. Even in college, though by then I put a lot more effort, and was never hated by my professors (many of them offered me references at the end of the year, specially my Finance professors, who all knew me by name), I still waited to study at the last minute. Something that used to piss off my college boyfriend to no end. Also a Finance & Investments major, he would spend at least an hour a day in the library studying. I'd join him the day before the exam, and crammed for a few hours. I'd get the A's, he had the B-'s and C's. And it wasn't the cramming itself that bothered him, it was that I would actually know more about it then him, ask me a question, or how to solve a problem, and I would know everything. Investment Analysis was an easy subject for me, I aced Statistics, International Finance was a lot of fun (yes, finance for me was fun), in Corporate Finance, with over 80 people in class, the professor would always ask me a question, he knew I always had the right answer.

I've been planning on going back to school and getting my MBA. I've been planning this for almost 6 years now, since I first graduated college. I haven't gone for lack of money, but nowadays, though I still can't afford it, I am also scared. I was very intelligent growing up. Both my parents are incredibly intelligent as well -- when my mom went to college, she got a scholarship based on her IQ. My brother was just like me too, little studying, great grades. My dad has an economics degree, my brother followed his footsteps, and me, with a finance degree where the basis is economics (after all, supply and demand affect the stock market like nobody's business -- and you can't explain the time value of money without getting into economic theory), I wasn't too far off either.

But now? I know I am not as intelligent as I used to be. My brain has been dormant lately. Sometimes I blank out when calculating a tip at a restaurant -- a tip for god's sake!! I am afraid, that somehow, over the years, without learning new things, I have become stupid.

I've had boyfriends in the past that have admired me saying how beautiful I am, but it always made me most proud when they looked at me in awe and said "Wow, you are incredibly intelligent" -- anyone can be pretty, after all.

I don't remember the last time anyone called me intelligent.