It Wasn't Easy

WARNING: If you're sensitive or tactful, or something weird like that, then you might not want to read this. If you don't like me, this will probably just give you something else to dislike me about.

I'm sorry, but cheaters still piss me off. Yeah, it's no new development, but I was talking with a dear friend tonight and I just kind of realized it again. We were talking about how we'd have a huge problem being in a relationship with a cheater, and it even bothers her a bit to be friends with them.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anybody. It seems that the cool thing to do these days is cover up your laziness/inadequacies/mistakes by demanding of anyone even remotely criticizing you if they're judging you, because of course, that would be horrible. No, no, I'm not judging anybody.
But I am judging what you're doing. And yeah, I'm valedictorian. So what? Does that make my opinions about this any less valid? More so, I'd think. I've been through all aspects of academia. I've been tempted to cheat, I've almost cheated, I even accidentally cheated once in seventh grade (but then I got the answer wrong on purpose because I felt guilty). Sure, write me off as self-righteous, elitist, or whatever you want. But you still know I'm right.
And don't give me that bullshit about how that's easy for me to say because I'm "smart". I'm no smarter than anyone else. I just worked my ass off to get where I am. Anything that I say, anything that I do, anything that I write, anything that sounds or looks smart that comes out of me has a ten year background of hard, hard work to it. No, it wasn't easy for me.
Or another argument was that if you cheat, you always get a few wrong on purpose so you don't screw over the guy who you're cheating off of. Nice work, figuring that one out. Now shut it, because you know it's complete bullshit. Any correct answers that you get that aren't your own are screwing somebody over. Your GPA and class rank don't care that the person in front of you let you copy his math homework. They'll overtake him anyways. Or maybe someone else. Maybe kick that person out of the top ten percent, and screw over her application to UT. There goes that plan.
I worked hard to get where I am. Even if you cheaters don't want to work, at least stop pretending like you aren't just lazy.

I actually wrote this post back on January 29th, but I'm just posting it now.

Sweet catharsis.