February 17, 2005

Good Work pays off.. or insanity distorts causation…

Filed under: Entries — arglor @ 1:33 pm

Ok the story from the top, I walk into class 1.5 minutes late for french. I’m worried because this woman has a tendency to call things out in attention but apparently she hadn’t even called roll so my tardiness slipped by without acknowledgement. I wasn’t worried at all because not only had i done what was required for today’s class but i also *understood* the work i had done. So,

Class Begins.

We go over the first major portion of the homework and I keep giving the answers while everyone else flounders. She walks around looking at each other’s notebooks and when she gets to the woman in front of me she gives a curt, “Where is your work?” and the lady stutters a bit saying she was sick the last class and did not know what work needed to be done. She steps up to me and notes that i’m writing in my book and she mumbles something about how unorganized i seem to be which gets me a little angry. Then some moments pass and she calls on me out of the blue for a question.

I pipe up and say the correct answer and she has a look of surprise but moves on. I’m thinking this adverserial position she is forcing me into is the wrong thing to do to me. I’m horrible when people judge me and i feel i must change their judgement. I turn cut throat. For the last three semesters i’ve been on adverserial positions with Dr. Berkeley. In fact one of the reasons i did so well in his Critical Thinking class was due to the fact that i wanted to show him his view of me being a slacker was ill designed. all the same, she appeared to be doing this very same thing to me. Forcing me to change her opinion of me.

So class continues and i keep surprising her by being on task with whatever she wants, even answering in complete french sentences.

As class closes, she looks at me and asks me to stay behind. I meander around hoping i’m not late to physics when she says, “Meet me at 2:00 today and we can talk about your grade. I decided to do a class curve which makes your F turn into a D- but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot to work on.” I’m speechless. I nod desiding it is best to not show complete surprise and say i’m free at that time.

So… I’ve gone from thinking i was in the fight of a lifetime to being be-wildered. I’m so confused. I like thinking of her as mine enemy. I was actually having delusions of making an A. oh how sweet that would be. Anyways…

I go into physics and since i’m in such a good mood i end up feeling really good about what i learned in physics… which was all about friction.

The good news is i’m going to talk to her about my grades and ask her how to handle the proposed mis-dates. I still have a great desire to go see the daily show on those days.

One Response to “Good Work pays off.. or insanity distorts causation…”

  1. mayfly Says:

    Can’t wait to hear how it went. Call me tonight around nine thirty (my time)? LOL. Friction… I wanna know what you’re learning in physics too actually… curious. P.S. I vote “Good work pays off.” You worked on French for 3 hours last night!