On the first foggy day since Fall Quarter began, my Muir 40 instructor, who was from Louisiana, noticed our more-lethargic-than-usual attitudes and commented, "It's like you Californians are solar powered or something! Once the sun goes away, nobody wants to do any work."
I grinned because his statement couldn't have been more true - we Californians are solar powered, and it takes a while for the power in our battery reserves to kick in when the sunshine suddenly disappears without warning like that.
We're just like solar powered calculators - economical, resilient, and more environmentally friendly than conventional alternatives!
There's something magical about the warm sunshine that can turn just about any frown upside down in an instant.
Even though a loud noise outside my window woke me up at a little past eight this morning, after I had just gotten about six hours of sleep, and my one and only Tuesday class (an art history class called "Formations of Modern Art") didn't start for another four and a half hours, I wasn't annoyed or upset at all. After tossing and turning for about thirteen minutes, trying to fall asleep again with no success (it was way too stuffy in our room), I got out of bed and decided to do something productive with my Tuesday morning for once - I started studying for my political science midterm.
With a good amount of studying done and a hearty breakfast of Cherrios, Silk soy milk, and a (rather large) handful of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips sitting in my stomach, I was out the door and on my way to my art history class with a smile on my face.
While all of my classes this quarter are pretty enjoyable (history, political science, art history, and writing - what's not to like for a math and science phobic person like me?), my art history class is by far my favorite class. The professor is brilliant (and has an amazing British accent, to boot!) and my TA is very knowledgeable and charming, in an admittedly awkward but very cute way. I always look forward to my Tuesdays and Thursdays because of this class.
As my professor set up the slides on his computer for today's lecture, he announced to the class that my TA had finished grading all of our midterms and that all students in his Thursday section should come up to the front of the room to claim the booklets after class. I was very anxious to see my grade, but today's lecture on more complicated Impressionist artists and works of art soon drove all thoughts of the midterm out of my mind; even though I was trying very hard to concentrate and focus on what my professor was saying about the works of Degas and Manet, I just didn't see the representations or connections in the works as easily as I did for the earlier French paintings we studied. Maybe the smaller-than-usual slides and the fact that I didn't do the week's readings yet had something to do with it.
By the time class was over, my mind was still working hard trying to process all the tidbits of information I had just heard in lecture and if I hadn't seen my TA walk up to the front of the room with a stack of bluebooks, I probably would have forgotten to pick up my graded midterm.
After he thumbed through his pile and pulled out my bluebook (which was the only one without the UCSD logo on it because I had purchased my recycled-from-waste bluebook from the Co-op instead of the bookstore like everyone else), he flashed his toothy grin at me and handed me the exam. As I walked up the stairs out of the lecture hall, I flipped through the pages of my bluebook, skimming my TA's comments ("Excellent," "Anxiety in Gericault not mentioned..." "FYI: This is a 20th century word applied retrospectively," etc) and looking for my grade.
When I reached the last page of my essay and didn't see a letter grade anywhere, I started to panic - did my TA forget to give me a grade?
Just as I was walking out of the darkened lecture hall and into the warm sunshine, I noticed the outline of a letter on the inside cover of my bluebook and excitedly opened my exam booklet once again and saw this:
A/A+ 19.5 (out of a possible 20)
Nothing could have wiped the ear-to-ear grin off of my face then; I felt like I was walking on clouds (though there were none in the clear, blue sky)!
The sun is just starting to set, my load of laundry will be done in about twenty-three minutes, I have orange juice (with calcium!) and chocolate soy milk in my fridge, and I finally got my "5 for $10" theater season subscription card earlier this afternoon - could the day get any better?
1 comment:
NICE! lol. You always own those essay question tests! Now we know for sure (since it is college and all) that those high grades on essays in Tray's class were no fluke! Keep owning the rest of your midterms if you have any!
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