It's not MY grades that bug -- it's other people's

I got a B in employment law. No grades for my other two classes yet.

I remember thinking in December that a B would be good, considering my abysmal performance on the exam, and it totally is. I completely bungled one subsection of a question on the test, writing that the claims that could be pursued under that subsection were the same as the one above. Clearly wrong. Clearly stupid. I just ran out of time.

When I saw the grade, though, I did feel pretty disappointed -- I liked the class so much, and really felt stimulated by the section on employment discrimination. Hell, I even applied and got an offer at the EEOC because of that class!

I was feeling okay about it, though, when I ran into Prom Queen a couple hours later. Prom Queen is an extremely popular, confident, extroverted, insanely ambitious yet equally nice to everyone, girl from my hall last year. She was also in the class, and did the take-home paper for it (I took the in-class exam). She got a B+ and is going to talk to the prof about it, 'cause she's not happy with the grade.

This, I must explain, is partly because she hasn't gotten above that B+ ceiling since law school started, AND because she wants to do employment stuff in the future (plus clerk for a judge), so it's not like she's Miss Straight As and whiny about the B+. But I still felt a twinge of jealousy. I liked the class so much! Why didn't I get a B+? And the green-eyed monster continues: I know I've gotten better grades than Prom Queen -- I got three A-s last year! So why did she get a B+ and I, a B?

My saner side intervenes: I know exactly why I got a B -- I fucked up the exam. And since the grade is entirely based on the exam, I should be happy that I got a B and not worse. I mean, I really flubbed that part of the question, ridiculously so.

Anyway, the most important thing is that I don't lose the excitement I had for the topic just because of my grade. After all, look at Uncle Joe (my property prof last year). He got a B- in his first year property law class, and now he's one of the giants of the field. (Which is funny if you know him, since he's a very short, avuncular Jewish man.)

This'll be a good test for me in continuing to pursue an interest, despite not having obtained the bells and whistles for it. Being good at something doesn't mean you like it (see civil procedure); likewise, liking something doesn't mean you're good at it (see property, also employment). But liking something probably means you're going to get better at it.

And thus ends the homily for today.