As some college students can attest to, the first few weeks of summer are somewhat jaded for us. Why, you ask? The answer is very simple; we can not fully relax and bask in the summer sun until our grades have been posted. For better or worse, I need to know what my work over the semester has earned me in terms of grades. Now, in all honesty, I am NOT always as attentive and dedicated to my studies as I should be...I fall victim to procrastination often and I don't always give the effort needed to complete a project to its fullest potential. This does not mean, however, that I don't care about my grades or my schoolwork- quite the contrary. I've always been one of those people who was able to do well ( some would say better than well) with almost no effort involved. My theory is, if I can get 90's with minimum effort, why would I bust my hump to get a 95? The logic is clear to me, but it drives others crazy. Of course, in the event that I'm NOT getting 90's, I'll put in the extra effort to ensure I am back up to my acceptable range.

This doctrine of thinking has served me well throughout college; I maintain a 3.54 GPA, play varsity volleyball, am a member of the HPE club, and work for the Office of Accessability. I absolutely have full schedule and somehow or other I manage everything quite well. This semester was one of my busiest yet; I overloaded and took six classes rather than five. I had to take arguably one of the hardest classes for my major, and had to travel all around New England on Sundays because I coach travel volleyball for 16 year old girls. Somehow, though, this semester was one of my best academically. As the semester winded down, I was able to reflect upon all my grades and I realized that I was in wonderful shape for getting a 4.0 for the semester. WOW, I thought...what an accomplishment! My parents would be so proud! I anxiously awaited all my grades, checking eWeb multiple times a day and crossing my fingers that "Spring 2010" would pop up as an option under the final grades tab.

Finally, after much anticipation, I checked this morning and got what I hoped for...Final grades were posted! I clicked the tab, took a deep breath, and scrolled down. This is what I saw:

It's a bit difficult to read,but in short, I have 5 A'S and 1 A-...my A- is in your class.

This is somewhat upsetting to me. In all honesty, I did put in a lot of effort this semester, all the way around the board...and to have one A- with the rest being A's is a a little painful for me to look at.

So what is the purpose of this blog post?

This blog post is my plea, my begging on hands and knees, my appeal to your empathy of what it must feel like for me to look at those grades and see one that is not identical to the others...

Is there any of my previous work that you may be able to review, or perhaps some additional work I can complete that will give me the extra points necessary to achieve an A? I mean, I'm pretty much willing to do anything that

A) Is legal

B) Does not require copious amounts of money

and

C) Does not require me to break my Vegetarian ties.

That's a pretty big window for you, Dr. Liu, the possibilities are (almost) endless...

Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to achieve my goal!

Thank you :)