Growing up?

I'm not really sure what has happened to me. I used to be a slacker and proud of it when it came to school work. I would do the work assigned to me, but I would usually just go so far that it was good enough, and not care. I was not very academically virtuous, according to the Aristotelian use of the word.

But now I find myself not only doing homework assignments multiple times (to make sure it's as close to perfect as I can manage), but I enjoy doing it. Granted, when the questions asked are boring or straightforward I don't enjoy it so much. But I look forward to the difficult questions that will hopefully show up at least once in every assignment and test.

I'd like to say this is part of growing up, but I don't think so. I think it comes down to two things. One, I'm determined to have the highest grade, which isn't so much academic virtue as plain old competition (and I have a rather large competitive streak in me). Two, I take the more difficult questions as a personal challenge. I know they're thrown in to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I'm determined to be wheat. So I guess that's also the competitive motivation.

And it's probably safe to say that a good amount of my actions spring from that motivation. So maybe not so much of the growing up.