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How to Procrastinate

When did a B become a bad mark? (omg I hope I don’t get a B on my assignment.) It seems this is what happens moving up into graduate studies. Everyone is stressing over grades. Nothing below an A is good enough and a B is required to pass a course. I hate having that kind of pressure. I did well in my undergrad but even though I stressed over my grades I don’t remember this kind of dread. In my undergrad I wanted high marks but I didn’t need them in the same way I do now. Knowing that good work is a fail and that very good is barely a pass I am paralyzed for fear that my work will be mediocre — or worse — adequate.

There’s been some weird power flickers here today and my desktop keeps shutting down. If it wasn’t happening to the clocks on that side of the house as well as to Rob’s desktop I might wonder if my power supply has finally given up. Since the machine is off anyway I’ve decided I should let things cool down and take this opportunity to replace that power supply. I bought my new one – a 430W Seasonic – at Canada Computers when I was in Toronto last weekend for Mitch’s birthday shindig. The visit with K & Mitch was wonderful, the staff at the computer shop helpful, the curried vegetables at King’s Cafe were amazing but the stress from almost missing the train home because I miscalculated how long the Spadina street car would take to get to Union Station…gulp…that I could have done without.

So anyway, can you tell when blogger-students have papers due? There’s always a flurry of posts. Instead of writing the assignment, we blog. Or maybe blogging is the warm up? To prove to ourselves that we can still put words together and we may as well write the ones our professors want to read instead of the ones that make our significant others/friends/families wonder if we’re/they’re really going to survive our education.

2 comments:

  1. jodi, 21. April 2008, 19:10

    Funny, a Master’s is the terminal degree in my field and so I now find myself thinking, so what if I get a B? It’s never going to keep me out of a PhD programme, hah! My students, though, are very stressed about grades and they freak out if you give them a B. Because the State of Georgia has a scholarship programme for every kid as long as they keep their grades up.

     
  2. Candace, 22. April 2008, 10:10

    Wow — that sounds like an amazing scholarship program. I understand why students want the marks.

    In the History MA at Windsor it may come down to the harshness that a C is a FAIL and an A is very very hard to get. I think there are a lot of B+s going around. When you add the fact that no PhD program will look at you unless you have all As it makes for a very stressful semester. Or final week anyway.

     

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