Platitudes can't give me comfort when I get rejected. Platitudes aren't bandages for negative emotions, because while I'll believe them to be true in the end, I still feel somewhat shitty when I receive an email starting with "thank you" and "unfortunately."

I write a lot about job search but because I'm honestly so done, I'll talk about something else today.

I remembered two assignments I had to do in fourth grade that were classic examples of me being an absolute tryhard but an absolute failure at the same time. I was assigned to make a comic/magazine page about the geologic rock cycle (or whatever it was called) and for some reason or another I decided to copy sentences off the textbook. But I'd embellished my page, including labels of "the images may not be very clear" that my teacher had shown the entire class how pretty my project was (with some students effectively copying my little decorations, as I'd later found out) and also announced loud and clear how I'd fucked up. I was in fourth grade and I'd inadvertently plagiarized. It was embarrassing.

Then in the same semester I was assigned to draw a food web of ocean animals and I'd colored the paper with bright blue waves and beautiful crayon creatures that I'd drawn three food chains instead of one food web. And my teacher had held it up to the class, pinned it on the whiteboard, and told me to redo it.

"Isabellllll." My teacher had enunciated my name with disappointment. The type of disappointment that wasn't outwardly mean, the way my parents would blatantly express, but also with enough disapproval that I later realized this was the type of reaction I'd avoid at all costs. The type attributed to an exasperated sigh of my name, of "I expected better of you."

I don't know. Did I prioritize the aesthetics over function? Yes. Did I screw up? Sure. Was my teacher terribly mean about it? Not really. Was it a mild form of public humiliation? Arguably. Do I think about these moments often? Not at all -- it just snuck into my mind randomly the other day. I'm sure no one really remembers it but me. If I were a few years younger I'd probably treat these events as haunting memories. Nowadays they're just belongings I forgot I had.