Got the grades.

[icarus]

The grades just came in today.

I nailed the Geology class. Which was expected -- hooray, extra credit.

Unbelievably I got 3.8 for Logic. I must have aced the final. Given that the score was based on only two exams and three assignments - one of which I only got 50% (the evil dreaded conditional proofs) - I must have had a perfect or near perfect score on the final.

Now time for the sigh of disappointment: 3.6 in the Religions class. Ouch, that's a shock. I'd nailed all most of the weekly assignments and the two exams, so I must have really blown the final exam.

Okay, yeah, it was a really tough class, but I think I've just learned a lesson in "balance" and "overkill."

Guess I worried about the wrong test.

Hunh.

Fourteen years as a monastic and my lowest score for the quarter is in Religions. There's a certain irony in that.

Comments

[cordelia_v]

Her lowest grade is a 3.6 and she's berating herself.

And here we all thought that Hermione was a fictional character.

Heh. She definitely, definitely would be at home in grad school . . .

[cordelia_v]

Rereading that later, I realize that I was too cryptic. Sometimes, it's better to be straightforward.

Those are all three very good grades. The Philosophy and Geology scores are more than good: they're terrific. You should be proud of your accomplishment, there. Congratulations!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I didn't respond last time you mentioned that I was cut out for grad school/Hermione (yeah, swamped with finals), but I tell you, I take it as high praise and really appreciate it. *beams*

Especially coming from you.

Truth is, both the Logic and the Religions classes were very demanding courses -- my sanity was called into question by my classmates ("You're taking This class and Logic?"). To get decent grades while taking both at the same time pleases me a great deal. Neither were classes where I could fall back on writing papers, and I worked my ass off I tell you.

I just always have that little flogger out (come on, Icarus, you can do better than that). Keeps me on my toes.

I expected those scores to be reversed. What did I do on that final exam?

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*grinning* I repeated this to wildernessguru and he just laughed.

Icarus

[cordelia_v]

I just always have that little flogger out (come on, Icarus, you can do better than that). . . .

I expected those scores to be reversed. What did I do on that final exam?

See, that's the part where you're channeling Hermione.

I can't imagine how I got into grad school, to be honest. I was never very anxious about tests, not like you and Hermione. I only remembered at about 2 a.m. the night before the GRE (I was at a party, and someone reminded me) that the test was at 8 am. the next morning. Herminone would never have made that mistake.

But it's always better to be lucky than smart, I say. Anyway, congratulations about the very good GPA (all of them, and stop apologizing!), and enjoy the time off from school.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ha! So relaxed. I love it.

I used to deliberately ignore grades, because I didn't believe that they accurately reflected progress/ability and they set up competition between kids, discouraging the kids who weren't 'sharp,' and encouraging superficiality and laziness in the ones who were.

Typical Waldorf student.

After corporate America, I've learned to play the game. But I know grades are just a game and their only purpose is to help me get into a four-year university.

. . .

I think what I missed was the essay question on Marxism. I had a really good discussion with one of the Marxists in the class that's left me thinking about it, and I deliberately picked the "debunking religion" views because they were so different from my own. But I may have extrapolated too much.

Perhaps Marx's views that mankind is not outside society didn't mean that society both shapes us and is shaped by us. The bit we had from him said society shapes us -- but his emphasis on changing society indicates that he believes society is also shaped by us. Yet he doesn't explicitly say that. I was going out on a limb there.

I may not have captured the essence of the dispute between the African Onyame view (that everything is spirit, the Absolute), and the Indian Charvakas (that everything is matter). Even though I prefer the Onyame view, I felt that their logic was a bit dodgy.

Philosophy is tricky: you have to be insightful, yet at the same time exercise great care in not mixing up the views. Especially in this case; the essays were that you took one point of view, then argued it against another point of view and vice versa. Which required depth.

Icarus

[cordelia_v]

Perhaps Marx's views that mankind is not outside society didn't mean that society both shapes us and is shaped by us.

Well, I haven't read everything he wrote, by a long shot. But I would not have associated the second view with Marx, only the first. He actually doesn't attribute much agency at all to individuals, but only to large groups. And even groups are subject to his "historical laws" in terms of the possible outcomes.

But second guessing what you wrote on a test is a waste of time, really. If you're that curious, email the teacher and ask.

Was I really that "relaxed?" No. In my case, not getting anxious isn't quite the same as being relaxed. I'm so constituted that I can hardly get anxious about anything, even something that is potentially life-threatening. My husband sometimes calls me (not affectionately) his "reptile wife," because I'm so cold-blooded, in some respects.

Certainly with the GRE, it was more that I was clueless. It never occured to me to prep for that test, for example. Now, I sometimes coach students for the test if they ask for help (I teach them how to work the verbal analogies section, or to produce exactly the 5 paragraph template essay that the GRE is looking for, on the writing section), and I'm amazed at how much effort and preparation my students put into it. That simply wouldn't have occured to me.

If my acquaintance hadn't reminded me about the test at 2 a.m. the night before, who knows if I would have taken it in time for grad school applications, that year? My entire life might have turned out differently. As it was, I stumbled in to take the test hung over, having had about 5 hours sleep. And I still wasn't anxious; that's how clueless I was. And I did shockingly well, which was an outcome that I did not deserve, at all.

There is no logic to the universe.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should be getting my exam back shortly. The teachers here have us give them a SASE if we want our exams and papers back after the quarter.

But I would not have associated the second view with Marx, only the first. He actually doesn't attribute much agency at all to individuals, but only to large groups. And even groups are subject to his "historical laws" in terms of the possible outcomes.

Yep, that's where I extrapolated too far. The piece we were given was too short to be clear (about half a page in fact, the part with his famous "opium of the people" quote). I complained that given Marx's impact on the world it wasn't enough and the clarification I asked for in class (from both the teacher and the two Marxists), well, it looks like there was too much of an attempt to search a common ground between Marxism and Buddhism.

So Marxism and Buddhism are the reverse in that sense. Marx says the causes are entirely external conditions, that individuals are more like drops in an ocean of history. From a historical perspective it certainly looks that way.

But wouldn't that be a contradiction? If individuals can rise up and lose their chains -- that would indicate that they must have some power and will to act.

There's also empirical evidence of individual will -- if you drop apples in front of two people, one will bend down to pick one up and the other won't. This implies choice. Then there's the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle: the more you can fix an atom's place in the present particular moment, the less you can predict it. The more you know about an individual in a particular moment, the less you can predict them.

It seems to me that Marxism is based upon a vast amount of 20/20 hindsight.

The Chittamatra school of Buddhism may say something similar, that there is nothing but the external conditions, yet the power always lies with the individual: once you have the illusion of self you have to work from where you are.

Icarus