Oh also: school
So I got a freaking B in my literature seminar. I'm pissed b/c a B in a grad class is almost like a high D or something anywhere else. I mean it doesn't do that much to your GPA, I guess, but it raises eyebrows. You get enough Bs and people start wondering if you should really be there. I think the thing that was most upsetting was that the professor wrote that he was "disappointed with [my] performance in the seminar." I was disappointed when I saw he was disappointed. I mean I tried to pull my weight; I tried. I wasn't really interested in being in that class in the first place. I didn't want to take a lit class, but I had to for the MA requirements. I have my MA now, and of course that means I have to do 2 more for the PhD. I'm going to try and play it smart though, and take stuff that can count for literature but be more linguistics-oriented. The course was bearable, I guess; it was just that it took up a lot of time (4-6 on Monday evenings), I had to read a massive book and do a presentation on it, do a paper (which the prof noticed was too short), and keep up with the readings for other people's presentations (which I really didn't do.) So I mean...I guess I nominally tried, but I didn't try hard enough. And I suppose he's right to be disappointed in me, and in a way I'm disappointed with myself...but also that's not even remotely what I wanted to do in grad school and I think it's kind of dumb to make me take a class like that in the first place. I don't want to do literature. I am a linguist. I understand that if I land a teaching position at some small college that doesn't have a German program to speak of, then I might have to teach literature, and that's why they have those requirements. But it's really painful. Honestly I should have been more savvy in this situation. I should have realized "hey yo...this is an upper-level seminar in the area that you don't want to BE in! You should do everything you can to avoid taking this class, and take something that will fill the requirement but not kick your ass." Alas though, I didn't. At the time I signed up for it, the seminar was the most interesting topic of the lit topics being offered. One of the seminars was with a visiting professor from Germany, too, and they tend to have a bad rap in the department - mostly because they don't understand the American university system and try to run things like a class in Germany. So I thought I would be safe with the seminar called "Historicizing the German Democratic Republic." Not so. Not so at all. I think one of the things I'm most paranoid about is that someone will go "hey; you got a B. We can't have grad students making B's. You might actually have to leave. And not get your PhD." That would really REALLY suck. So...I'm a little worried. Maybe I will talk to my advisor about it. I think he probably will tell me "well, it happens," or something like that. Hopefully my work in the other classes will be good enough to make up for this. Although in any case, at least I have the master's now.