I tell this to many of my girlfriends, and they reply "Me too". We all cried for getting 9 out of 10. We still do.
When I came to the UK and I got my first essay back, it was an A - 80%. I was furious. I had a 1 hour long argument with my teacher after class - "What's wrong with it?". What is missing? He tried very hard to explain to me this was a top mark, but I was having none of it. Why didn't he give me 100%? I had failed.
I am 35 now - 25 years later - and whenever I make a mistake, especially at work, I tell myself "I am stupid". When someone else tells me I make a mistake, it's 100 times worse. I lose sleep. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop apologizing. It should have never happened.
I am still crying for the 9 mark.
It's only very recently that I came to think about what a 9 mark means. It really means that I worked as hard as to bring it up from 0 all the way to 9. It really means there is only 1 missing to bring it up to a 10. It really means 1 is a very small thing in proportion to 9. It means I have done really well, and maybe that missing 1 is really not that important. Maybe it's OK to do a 9-mark job. It still means you have done a hell of a lot of work.
This Christmas I took a photo of my best painting with my phone - only I got one edge wonky. I agonised for two weeks to take another perfect photo, so I can use it to make my Christmas cards - until it was the last day to get them printed on time. So I did the un-imaginable: I cropped the photo! So what came out was a beautiful Christmas card - and only I knew it's a 9-mark job.
I keep it on my desk, to remind myself what a 90%, 9-mark, "mistaken" job looks like. I like it.
Here it is - you won't know the difference:
