how I hate school and think it should just rot

okay, so.. I actually love learning things. I love the feeling of thinking so hard your head spins and you just have no idea what is happening. I love those "aha" moments when something finally clicks. I love the struggle of the mind to wrap around ideas just out of reach.

You see, in moments like these I worship God through the use of my mind. In fact, I used to hold a good theological debate as the one kind of worship that got my blood racing. With thoughts racing and spinning and dancing and jumping and diving, testing one another in what comes across as a dramatic and urgent quest for truth, how could you help but be elated to know the Lord of the mind?

And then there is school. And panic attacks over what one stupid assignment with no instructions and an expectation of understanding is going to do to my grades. and my chance to get into grad school. and my life. ugh.

Basically, I have a lazy teacher. She is only assigning us 4 assignments. She apparently does not want to grade a whole lot. on the last two assignments I have gotten 100% (go me). Then, on the first of two tests, for which we were supposed to "just study homework assignments" I got 75%. Great. Now assignment 3, which I am supposed to email in by 10am, has no instructions, nor does it look like anything in my notes, lecture slides or text book. So, yeah, I am freaking out. Because - didn't I mention? its 9am.

after 3 hours of struggling over trying to figure this out I was officially in panic attack mode. I mean like shaky-hands, close-to-tears, rocking-back-and-forth, almost-called-my-mom-twice panic attack.

So much for worship through intellect.

But really. Doesn't loving God "with all your mind" mean giving 100% to your homework assignments and doing them as if you were submitting them to Jesus or something? Am I not supposed to go to school and get good grades in order to love God with my mind, as an intelligent young person privileged enough to grow up where I did and have this opportunity?

Or is it possible that loving God with my mind doesn’t involve panic attacks about a really dumb assignment? Is it possible that loving God with my mind means something else entirely?
Is it possible that loving God with all my mind is just there not as a mandate but as a piece of the description to love God with every part of me- a description of the kind of love that pours out of and into every moment of my life, every fiber of my being?
Is it possible that in order to live out that kind of love I should look not to the stodgy world of academia, but should look to the depth of the text of the Scriptures, look to the community of the Church, look to the world around me and look to the depths of my soul where somewhere, somehow the Spirit of the living God indwells me?
Now, I really don’t want to freak out my parents or anything, so let me just say that I have every intention of finishing school. I do not think that the structures of academia and loving God with your mind are mutually exclusive. I just do not think they are the same thing.
I am daring to dream that God has more for me than anxiety over not knowing what to write on a piece of paper.