I don't really feel bad per se, I just know virtually everyone expected more of me, like graduating with honors or being valedictorian. In hindisight it all seems so ridiculous. Here's the thing: I didn't work hard, outside of the insane time comitment. That's... not the way learning (or being taught) works for me. My grades always depended on whether or not a teacher would accept that or not.
My math teacher in years one, four and five didn't. Hence the bad grades. She couldn't fail me because I got good grades on the exams, but she sure as hell wouldn't give such a lazy arsed student any slack*. No sir. In our final graduation exam we had two math parts, one was graded by a different teacher (straight A, or at least our equivalent) and hers was barely a passing grade. I can only assume that she was the type of person who always had to work hard or study hard to grasp certain concepts. She also taught programming in our first year, where I barely got a passing grade, teachers in later years gave me an A without bothering to look at the programs I've turned in.
There was a teacher who told me that the biggest problem I have is that I never learned how to study. To this day, I still don't know what that's supposed to mean.
Once I was forced by an English teacher of mine to join a special extracurricular English focus course that was meant to help students with learning disabilities to keep up with the other students after getting a perfect 100% test score on every single god damned test we had because I didn't seem to be paying attention in class and when pressed for an answer couldn't explain what ridiculous grammar rule I applied to get to the correct result on something or another (I think it was reported speech, which is supposed to be "hard"). I only knew the correct tense to use, not why it was the correct tense.
*Okay, so here's a little more info on this, I've posted that before but it's buried somewhere in a locked thread and looking something up on this board is annoying, to say the least.
In order to be actually accepted into the course at the time, you needed to pass something similar to your SATs, only at a level for 14-year-olds. Roughly one in ten students manage to pass. We had 2500 applicants this year for the five year course, and 220 were accepted (one of them me, obviously). When I graduated there were 48 people left, however, not all of them were from the group of 220 people who passed the application SAT, because if you fail a class you can repeat a year. You can do this twice. Fail a third time, and you're out. Half of the people who graduated with me were what we called "repeaters" - students who had to retake at least one year.
The teacher in question began the year by telling us that she'll be giving copious amounts of home work, but that is merely for our benefit. It's optional, but highly encouraged to turn it in. Already strapped for time with all the other homework and commuting, I just didn't do any math homework. Now I'm there, obviously not paying attention to her (because at the time I didn't know yet I was supposd to make people feel like I listened to them, instead of just listening to them when they speak) and not taking any notes (mostly things I already knew, first year is just there to weed out the dum-dums that somehow made it past the application examination and bring everyone up to the same level).
It ended with her telling me halfway through the semester that homework is no longer optional, and I'd better spend the the Christmas holidays catching up with all the homework I missed. Why thanks. Why the change? Well becaus roughly half the class failed the first math exam but I didn't, but they showed initiative in always turning in their homework. Luckily for her she didn't have to give me the A I was due because she claimed it was impossible to read some of my numbers (couldn't argue with that, my handwriting is horrible).
Oh, right, and she was also the teacher that was organisationally reponsible for our group of students (we were group 1C, i.e. 1st year, third group, out of six). When I ended up not failing the year she just had me transferred out of her group of studens. Screw you, hag. Really.
The more the years went on, the more I applied the same concept. I barely took notes on anything, I never studied at home. I only did homework for classes I liked doing. I stopped caring about my grades, thanks to being treated unfairly. Heck, I started skipping classes, which I've never done before. That's actually on my graduation diploma. "Missed over 200 hours at school with no leave of absence." Yay?
And yet... I somehow muddled through, on a 5 year course that drops 99% of all applicants (and 85 to 90% of all those that were accepted). Ami is what I could have been. With a little understanding and encouragement. Too much to ask from teachers, I suppose.
edit: I also hope that explains why I dropped out of university over a silly basic math course. No more. Until here, and no further. Seems silly to draw a line in the sand like that.