Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Fall grades and a progress report

December 15, 2010 at 5:41pm
I expected, no, I deserved to receive F grades in all of my classes.  After all, I had to leave school before midterms due to this ongoing illness.  I wrote my instructors, kept them up-to-date with all the pertinent details, and even assured them that I fully understood that F grades were likely.  I did arrange with one instructor regarding an Incomplete.  I figured one class would be more than enough extra work to finish while recovering from my upcoming surgery... along with the 4 online classes I'm taking to keep financial aid and insurance active.

Yes, I'm getting to the point.

I looked at my grades today.

The Incomplete is there for 18th Century Novel.  Expected.
The F is there for Senior Seminar. Also Expected.
Now, for the two completely unexpected results:

First, my 19th Century Novel class was mostly horrible, even when I could attend.  I didn't feel like I connected with the instructor and she was, in fact, the one who sat down with me and explained why an Incomplete in her class was not possible.  She gave me an Incomplete!  Oh my goodness.  This is a mixed blessing.  Not so good because now I have to finish all the work that I didn't expect to have to do.  Not impossible, but perhaps somewhat burdensome. Good because with an Incomplete, I didn't take as large a hit to my GPA.

Now, there's one more class hanging out in limbo.  20th Century Novel.  Honestly, most of us slept through that class.  It was billed as a discussion course, but held in an auditorium with 120 students.  Not much discussion went on.  For that class, I turned in 2 papers.  Got an A on one, a B+ on the other.  Naturally, having not done the research paper, the midterm OR the final for that class, I expected an F.  She gave me a C... a C!  C is passing, dangit.  Granted, my grades up to this point have been A's (one little A- in Hemmingway and B's in Spanish) but heck, I'll take the freaking C and be thrilled with it!

Whoa.  All I can say is, whoa.

I needed some happy news today.

Tomorrow I go back to the gyn.  Although I've been trying not to think about it, I'm rather worried about this visit.  Not because I'm afraid of the surgery.  No, I'm oddly excited about that.  I'm concerned because the reason I'm going back is to find out the biopsy results.  If the biopsy is negative, then everything is fairly straightforward - I schedule the surgery with the gyn, have it done, do my 8-10 weeks of recovery and go on with my life.  However, if that little biopsy is positive, then my world collapses.  I will still have the surgery, still have the 8-10 weeks of recovery time, but the surgery will have to be done by an oncologist - and right afterward, I will have to start cancer treatments.  The waiting for these results has been nerve-wracking.  I know there's nothing I can do until I get the results, but that doesn't stop my brain from going haywire thinking over all the potential "what if's."

Meanwhile, I think I'll go cook something.  Cooking soothes the spirit.

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