Grades (86 of 90)

Late again, I got sick-ish last night and passed out unexpectedly early. My B.

It's that time of year:

The time of year when half my known universe is excited, and the other half is reluctantly excited. Constant Facebook updates tell me that half my friends are enjoying home, and the other half would gladly be anywhere else. I'm falling in between the two groups this year. I'm glad it's all over, really glad. But I'd rather be glad elsewhere. Glad somewhere where I didn't automatically dislike 90% of the population.

But along with this time of year comes the inevitable flood of the grade induced Facebook status. Grades came in last night, and my poor Facebook is drowning in them. I'm happy from my friends and acquaintances, really I am. They seem to be happy with themselves this time around. It's always disheartening to wake up one morning and find one of your friends might not make it back the next semester. But they seem to have done well this time around, and I'm happy for them.

As for me, I'm fairly happy too. An A and all B's. Not too shabby. I earned that A. And I (maybe) earned one of those B's. The rest are throwaway. Grades given not based on effort or any work ethic on my part but on latent ability to not suck. But I saw all of these grades coming, except for maybe that surprise B I (possibly) earned. But I have this feeling, that this last semester was the start of something. It's taken me 3 full years (in college, 20 years if we're looking at my life) to get to a point where I honestly work at something. Hopefully it'll carry over to this next year. Because, honestly, I'm getting tired of relying on latent ability to not suck. Two of five classes challenged me to do anything more than sit in class and pretend to pay attention. I swear, occasionally, it makes me feel like a genius. Which I'm not.

I'm not super intelligent. I'm just not an idiot. I'm decent at retaining information, which is how I've made it this far. I have close to zero study skills because I've never had to learn them (again, decent at retaining, why study when you can retain enough to get a B in the first place). And I'm not particularly good at anything. Except for maybe writing. Emphasis on the maybe here. I'm not even going to pretend to be God's gift to anything.

Any talent I have probably came from an innate ability to read. That's about the one thing I do well on my own. I can read, and therefore have been gifted the ability to steal as well. Which is a trait I believe is residual talent in all writers. People are decent writers, not of their own design, but because they've gathered the ability to uniquely jack talents and ideas and concepts from the things and people around them and smoosh them all together in a fashion that becomes their own "style". And the tenacity to be willing to sit down and be told their shit sucks about a million times before they have even one word right. But that's just being stubborn. Which, I suppose can be considered a talent in this field. Without a stubborn sense of the divine self, you probably couldn't make it too far as a writer (not a person who writes mind you).

So, my semester really came down to: latent ability to not suck, innate reading skillz, and my stubborn nature. Even being forced to utilize those last two counts as a very good semester in my book. I'm proud of my A and hard (possibly) earned B. And looking back, those are the only type of grades I've ever really been proud of. The ones where I actually had to write. There have been far too few moments like this, but as my senior year approaches, and a future hopefully spent writing, I can't help but think I'll actually be forced to work again. And the thought, well it's bittersweet. But mostly sweet.

Quote of the Day:

"When the going turns weird, the weird turn pro."
- Hunter S. Thompson