Yes, I did get some bad grades…
Meredith has the idea that I was always a straight-A student in school; it’s not true.
My worst grades in grade school: Handwriting and an English Class in 8th grade when the teacher wanted to teach one book (Treasure Island) for the whole damn year. I blew up in class at her, and she gave me a D. I tested into honors English for the next year in a different school.
My worst grades in high school: Chemistry - taught by a college-level professor to a bunch of what-the-heck-is-that students who were quickly lost, including the honors students. I dropped out quickly, and they yanked the teacher.
My worst grade in College: Statistics. I took Logic instead for my math requirement (having had four years of honors Math in high school) and aced that and the Algebra 101. I purely hate statistics, and will freely admit that while I’m a perfectionist in modelling systems for computers and the like, I loathe situations where I have to just pull stuff out of my hiney and pretend it’s real. Too many statistical model systems are based on crappy pre-analysis of the situation, and make too many inadequate and limited assumptions based on the way the butterfly flew past the modeller’s window that morning.
Maybe that’s why I never became a baseball fan.
Likewise, it’s a big part of the reason I don’t go in for modelling analysis at work, especially in regard to reports about ‘how well we did this year’.