Thursday, December 25, 2008

Beating the System

Excerpt from journal December 25, 2008 in the wee hours of the morning:

I checked on my fall term grades today. [Today for me, yesterday for non-nightshifters.] I got 4.0 in both classes. I'm not sure I deserved it in the Sociology of Religion class. I feel like I could have done better on the paper, if I had spent more time on my church visits and on the writing and revisions. [I wasn't as precise with my language as I am when I write a sermon, where every single word is carefully and deliberately chosen and where I usually do 6-10 revisions. For my paper, I did have 6-8 false starts, but only one and a half revisions, although I reworked it several times in my head and even did a kind of an outline, which I rarely do.] I'm pleased with the grade, but not sure if I deserve it.

My overall GPA is now 3.97, up another .01. I still think that I should have gotten a better grade way back when, in the volunteerism class. That is the one class, I think, that kept me from a perfect score. I can't remember, there may have been one other as well. [If so, I probably deserved a less than perfect score, or I would remember it.]

It's funny, I never really cared about GPA before. It is just a number after all, and you can't categorize someone's character [or intelligence] with a grade. I still don't really care so much about the grade, but instead it has become like a competition between me and the system. I win the game if I learn so much and work so hard that I can win a 4.0. I think, perhaps, I have begun to look at grades much the way others "play" e-bay.

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