I subscribe to a bunch of e-mail lists, which if put in a list by order of subscription date would give an indication of my various interests. One of these is the RealSimple.com "Daily Thought" list, and today's message on that list is encouraging, unless, of course, you begin to wonder how many Einsteins there aren't in the world. But we'll take it in the "glass half full" manner and be encouraged:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
― Thomas Edison
Surely, I must be getting close to 10,000...
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Before I continue with my life where we left off, which is 1982, I got to thinking that there are several ways that I might be discredited, and I'm sure there are flaws somewhere along the line in my understanding of my life, but those who might correct me could also be wrong, and I don't think I'm wrong about everything.
One of the broad-brush arguments that one could use against me is that I'm just stupid, of even not stupid but just not all that intelligent. I don't make myself out to be an Einstein, but I do think there are some areas that I excel in. However, I do have evidence (more on that later) that fibromyalgia has affected my intelligence quotient. (In general terms, I'll just note here that it has been shown empirically that people with fibromyalgia do have a lost of brain gray matter inordinate for their age, although why this is so is as yet unclear). I do have my ups and downs in that, the fibromyalgia influence, though, according to whether I'm in a flare or not, for example. If I'm in a fibromyalgia flare my mental functioning is worse than when I'm not. Anyone with fibromyalgia can give testimony to that experience.
But I began trying to make sense of my life looonnngggg before I got fibromyalgia (thankfully!), so my general conclusions date back to before fibromyalgia. So I think that irregardless of my current mental capacities, conclusions that I came up with before fibromyalgia could be bolstered by evidence of my intelligence. So I'm going to give you some evidence in that regard right now, so as to lay that dog (the lack of intelligence argument against my interpretations and conclusions regarding my life and things related to it) to rest once and for all. That doesn't mean I'm always right (even geniuses have to test theories and not all of them are proven correct, after all), but that my overall credibility should be bolstered by this evidence I'm going to present to you now.
High school cumulative GPA (1975-1978): 3.45 (on a 4.0 scale)
Undergraduate cumulative GPA (1978-1982): 3.28 (on a 4.0 scale)
GRE scores (1982)
- Verbal: 510 (58 percentile)
- Quantitative: 580 (66 percentile)
Bible school cumulative GPA (1982-1983, 1984-1985): 2.33 (on a 4.0 scale)
Master's #1 cumulative GPA (1990-1996 - with interruptions): 3.914 (on a 4.0 scale)
Doctoral studies (1997-1998 - not completed): 3.76 (on a 4.0 scale)
Master's #2 (2004-2005): 3.8 (on a 4.0 scale)
***
This isn't exactly stellar, and not everything here, certainly, would help my validity in your eyes, but I'd like to at least explain a little, without, hopefully coming across as trying to give excuses.
I really applied myself in my later studies - the Master's and Doctoral ones, and my grades reflect that. Of course, I also followed subjects that I was reasonably good at, but so did everyone else in those programs too.
In high school and my undergraduate studies I did apply myself and wasn't a goof-off by any means, but I was also involved in a lot of other extracurricular activities on the side and wasn't as single-minded about my studies as I was later on. I did get on honor rolls and did well enough to be recognized in one way or another in both cases, though. In high school I was chosen to be the student delegate to the Parent Teacher Student Association and was likewise on the Curriculum Committee for my major in my undergraduate studies; both positions were by appointment.
My Bible school grades, which is actually where we are now in my chronology, were due largely to outside stresses in my life which made focusing on my studies very difficult, one particular area was that of housing. So it made studying very difficult. Even so, in my second year (1984-1985) I co-led the European Prayer Focus Group (there were regional prayer focus groups what spanned the globe and these were ongoing from year to year). Also, my first refereed journal article was in a theological journal, rather than in the other fields I studied, although one of other areas of study also served as a major foundation for that article.
***
Do with this information as you will, but if you want to use intelligence as a basis for critiquing my claims, you have to now take into account these facts. Of course, these aren't the only ways to show intelligence, but they're reasonably acceptable ones.
~ Meg
