Steel gets tough by being heated and cooled, heated and cooled. Your up-and-down year counts.

A year that swung between good and bad can feel wasted, as though only steady climbing counts. Alternation does something steadiness cannot; the repeated change is what produces toughness, not any single stretch of it. Looking back, the highs and the lows tend to read as one process rather than two contradictory results. Inconsistent is not the same as unproductive.

Instead of averaging the year into a grade, list what each part taught you. The good months and the bad ones usually taught different things. Carry both forward rather than only the parts you enjoyed.