"If I had any dignity, that would've been really humiliating."
Two exams down, two to go.
8:00am, bright and early, Monday morning I have my German exam. Then at 10:30, my world civ. exam.
I saw my German teacher today, just walking to Dunn I guess. He seems like a really friendly person just walking along, but whenever I've seen him outside of class, he's sort of.....well....it's like he's just acknowledging me. In class he's really nice, 99.9% of the time. [sigh] So strange are men.
On Wednesday, my world civ. teacher handed back essays we wrote on Siddhartha. I got an A. Now, I got an A on the last essay, but . . . all through that one were corrections (sentence structure, semicolons, etc.) and a foot note. Under the grade he wrote, "This is a well-done essay."
Which is great, of course.
But on this last essay, there were absolutely no corrections, no footnote, not even a friendly semicolon, just to let me know he read it. (I don't doubt for a second that he read it, but even on my 100 paper in U.S. History, there was a hyphon and a 'the' added in red.) Under the grade, he wrote, This is a superior essay that effectively presents the essence of the work and compares it thoughtfully to Gilgamesh. The essay is precisely and eloquently written.
Thank you very much for your interest and excellent work this term.
It was really touching, even more so at the time b/c I had to ask him to read it for me b/c his handwriting's totally illegible. Hearing him say it almost made me cry. I didn't know what to say! All I could do was smile and say, "That's really nice."
DOPE!!!!!
I'm sucha dope!!!
Thankfully, those were not my final parting words. Guy-who-sits-in-front was still there, and thanks to him the three of us parted talking about something else.
The whole rest of Wednesday and half of Thursday I kept thinking, "Superior essay" over and over, constantly assailing my mother with random cries of, "SUPERIOR ESSAY".
So, I was looking at my paper again, reading the last paragraph that's not the conclusion, the paragraph comparing Gilgamesh and Siddhartha. There was something lacking. I didn't see any of this "superior essay" in it. Now, the Monday of last week, he handed back our tests. After class let out, the blonde boy w/brown eyes and the blue-eyed boy, seeing that I was walking in their general direction, asked me what I made. I answered, got up to them, and we went along, talking about our tests. The blue-eyed boy told me about how on the first test, he had made a really bad grade and the blonde boy made a much better grade even though their answers said pretty much the same thing on the same stuff. Blue-eyed boy and blonde boy both usually participate in discussions, but blue-eyed boy almost always nods off during the bulk of class. It'd be no small wonder if Dr. Brown didn't like him, but the treatment of blue-eyed boy's work also seemed to reflect it.
So I got to thinking, like one does, and I thought, 'What if he gave me this grade and wrote these nice comments b/c I'm just one of his better-liked students?' The essay isn't that great. There are places where I have the wrong tense, places where I could have elaborated more. The essay was adequate. Did I really deserve the A? It all really meant so much coming from a teacher that I so very much admire, but years and years dispising my teachers has taught me to be uncomfortable when a teacher favors me. So now I'm uncomfortable. Did I deserve that A? Am I way too overthinking this?
8:00am, bright and early, Monday morning I have my German exam. Then at 10:30, my world civ. exam.
I saw my German teacher today, just walking to Dunn I guess. He seems like a really friendly person just walking along, but whenever I've seen him outside of class, he's sort of.....well....it's like he's just acknowledging me. In class he's really nice, 99.9% of the time. [sigh] So strange are men.
On Wednesday, my world civ. teacher handed back essays we wrote on Siddhartha. I got an A. Now, I got an A on the last essay, but . . . all through that one were corrections (sentence structure, semicolons, etc.) and a foot note. Under the grade he wrote, "This is a well-done essay."
Which is great, of course.
But on this last essay, there were absolutely no corrections, no footnote, not even a friendly semicolon, just to let me know he read it. (I don't doubt for a second that he read it, but even on my 100 paper in U.S. History, there was a hyphon and a 'the' added in red.) Under the grade, he wrote, This is a superior essay that effectively presents the essence of the work and compares it thoughtfully to Gilgamesh. The essay is precisely and eloquently written.
Thank you very much for your interest and excellent work this term.
It was really touching, even more so at the time b/c I had to ask him to read it for me b/c his handwriting's totally illegible. Hearing him say it almost made me cry. I didn't know what to say! All I could do was smile and say, "That's really nice."
DOPE!!!!!
I'm sucha dope!!!
Thankfully, those were not my final parting words. Guy-who-sits-in-front was still there, and thanks to him the three of us parted talking about something else.
The whole rest of Wednesday and half of Thursday I kept thinking, "Superior essay" over and over, constantly assailing my mother with random cries of, "SUPERIOR ESSAY".
So, I was looking at my paper again, reading the last paragraph that's not the conclusion, the paragraph comparing Gilgamesh and Siddhartha. There was something lacking. I didn't see any of this "superior essay" in it. Now, the Monday of last week, he handed back our tests. After class let out, the blonde boy w/brown eyes and the blue-eyed boy, seeing that I was walking in their general direction, asked me what I made. I answered, got up to them, and we went along, talking about our tests. The blue-eyed boy told me about how on the first test, he had made a really bad grade and the blonde boy made a much better grade even though their answers said pretty much the same thing on the same stuff. Blue-eyed boy and blonde boy both usually participate in discussions, but blue-eyed boy almost always nods off during the bulk of class. It'd be no small wonder if Dr. Brown didn't like him, but the treatment of blue-eyed boy's work also seemed to reflect it.
So I got to thinking, like one does, and I thought, 'What if he gave me this grade and wrote these nice comments b/c I'm just one of his better-liked students?' The essay isn't that great. There are places where I have the wrong tense, places where I could have elaborated more. The essay was adequate. Did I really deserve the A? It all really meant so much coming from a teacher that I so very much admire, but years and years dispising my teachers has taught me to be uncomfortable when a teacher favors me. So now I'm uncomfortable. Did I deserve that A? Am I way too overthinking this?