(no subject)
So, I got my English essay on Anna Karenina back today. I got an HD, 82%. Which is pretty good for an essay I wrote in two days and handed in three days late. I spent the afternoon suffused with that unique brand of giddy relief that only unexpected academic success can supply, because, honestly? I handed it in the Monday I was taking to bus down to the coast to visit my parents, and I spent the entire four hour trip squirming in shame over the thing. When I arrived I had to stop and give myself a little intervention, all 'It's done, it's handed in, and despite the fact that it may be the worst essay you have every written: lalalalalala we're not listening to the guilt pixies anymore...lalalalala'.
So, yes--giddy relief. But that never lasts, and now I'm just...ambivalent. I'm happy because dude, 82% for an essay worth 50% of the course grade is fan-fucking-tastic considering the effort I put in, and because I really, really love Anna Karenina as a novel. I love Levin, I love Anna, I love the fact that I can't hate Karenin, even though I would very much like to, because he is such a pompous insufferable prick. Getting a bad mark for an essay can kinda kill my love for a text, or at least my ability to read or watch it and not get sucked into a guilt-fest (see: the absolutely abysmal essay I wrote on Baz Luhrmann's R+J for which I got a deservedly abysmal mark and my dvd of same which is gathering dust, untouched since last year sometime)--so, partly happy. But...I also like knowing I got a good mark because the work I did was actually y'know, good, and I've read the thing over, and...I'm sceptical, even given my usual inability to objectively assess such things.
Basically, I think my mark was the result of a) possible lecturer insanity b) the fact that not that many people would've done their essay on Anna and c) the fact that it was really easy to pick from the tone of the essay question and the pertinent lectures which direction this lecturer favoured (I mean, I agreed with him, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't something I had in mind when writing the thing). I'd also think d) personal bias, cept I haven't been to tutorials for about a month and when I did go, I wasn't being my usual loud-mouthed self.
Ah, the university system is slightly strange. I mean, in college, I sometimes wondered whether my English marks were half the result of the fact that the head of the department thought I was the best thing since sliced bread, but that was mostly paranoia. On average, I think people are much more likely to be sincerely critical if they've had enough contact with you to know who you are and what you're capable of. The anonymity of university is daunting--it's like you can never quite know whether you actually deserved your grades, or whether it was a fluke of late-night marking or possibly the dreaded essays-down-the-stairs method (my brother told me about this once, and I've never really gotten over it. Ain't any urban legend scarier than that one).
(I'm half-tempted to post the thing and get other people's opinions, but I think recklessly exposing people to my neuroses, sans cut-tag and all, is more than sufficient.)
So, yes--giddy relief. But that never lasts, and now I'm just...ambivalent. I'm happy because dude, 82% for an essay worth 50% of the course grade is fan-fucking-tastic considering the effort I put in, and because I really, really love Anna Karenina as a novel. I love Levin, I love Anna, I love the fact that I can't hate Karenin, even though I would very much like to, because he is such a pompous insufferable prick. Getting a bad mark for an essay can kinda kill my love for a text, or at least my ability to read or watch it and not get sucked into a guilt-fest (see: the absolutely abysmal essay I wrote on Baz Luhrmann's R+J for which I got a deservedly abysmal mark and my dvd of same which is gathering dust, untouched since last year sometime)--so, partly happy. But...I also like knowing I got a good mark because the work I did was actually y'know, good, and I've read the thing over, and...I'm sceptical, even given my usual inability to objectively assess such things.
Basically, I think my mark was the result of a) possible lecturer insanity b) the fact that not that many people would've done their essay on Anna and c) the fact that it was really easy to pick from the tone of the essay question and the pertinent lectures which direction this lecturer favoured (I mean, I agreed with him, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't something I had in mind when writing the thing). I'd also think d) personal bias, cept I haven't been to tutorials for about a month and when I did go, I wasn't being my usual loud-mouthed self.
Ah, the university system is slightly strange. I mean, in college, I sometimes wondered whether my English marks were half the result of the fact that the head of the department thought I was the best thing since sliced bread, but that was mostly paranoia. On average, I think people are much more likely to be sincerely critical if they've had enough contact with you to know who you are and what you're capable of. The anonymity of university is daunting--it's like you can never quite know whether you actually deserved your grades, or whether it was a fluke of late-night marking or possibly the dreaded essays-down-the-stairs method (my brother told me about this once, and I've never really gotten over it. Ain't any urban legend scarier than that one).
(I'm half-tempted to post the thing and get other people's opinions, but I think recklessly exposing people to my neuroses, sans cut-tag and all, is more than sufficient.)