Saturday, August 04, 2007

A For Effort

The past few weeks I had been getting frustrated that I hadn't received my grade for my class yet. It's interesting to remember how confident I was about the class I took last semester. How I simply waited for the transcript to arrive in the mail, confirming what I had already suspected, the wonderful A we all cherish so greatly. ESC's website has an odd and maze-like interface. In order to get from point A to point B, one has to log in and out of several different screens. So, after much searching around, I accidentally stumbled upon the final letter grade for the Native American history class that recently came to a close.

I got an A.

I should be happy, and on a lot of levels, I am. However, as I discussed previously, I'm not 100 percent certain I feel I earned it. In the professor's eyes, I did work hard. I confess that I turned in a mean paper, which the professor stated was "a very creative, well-written and timely research paper". He also pointed out that my sources were "very interesting". True. It's not everyday one finds such publications titled "Counselling the Inupiat". Not to mention, even though I missed a few class discussions, the majority of the ones I contributed to I gave well thought out responses. I feel anyway.

Nevertheless, I should look at this as a learning experience and respect the academic slump I was in the last few months and stop being so hard on myself. If I were such a piss poor student, like I was convinced I was, I wouldn't have got the grade I did.

Now I can order my transcript in confidence, have it sent off to my future Alma mater, and hopefully, get the credit towards my intended degree. At this point, I just want it over with.

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