B

I waited longer than most, or many, Hampshire students to take a Five Colleges course, and the pitfall of waiting so long is the widening of the gap between high school and the "normal" college course, the eternal months spent in the dark valley of experimental higher education making the return to normative conventions of academic evaluation a shattering reunion.

That is: I got my first grade. I like to think that the jarring cognitive reaction this has triggered is a product of my success with/True Devotion to the Hampshire ideal: less strained objectivity; extensive verbal evaluation; no institutional randomness. But I have to say, there always was a certain carnal thrill in the gamble of submitting work for alphanumeric evaluation. The losses, when they come, can be crushing; the triumphs exhilarate like nothing else in this world. Despite my confidence that the "system," as it were, is essentially "broken" (man) I freely admit that I missed, in my heart of hearts, those big sparkly letters, assigned from on high like divine judgment.

But I'd also forgotten what an existential mindfuck it can be. I received a "B," which sounds about right: I guess I didn't use enough specific textual evidence to back up my claims. Also, my sentences are apparently too "hump-backed." (?) But the fact that this is the first letter grade I've received in so long meant that when first I laid eyes on that solitary figure of judgment, I couldn't help but feel as though my very human worth had been evaluated. This is especially accented in the heightened hyper-reality of college, where the academic, social and self-estimating fragments of normal teenage life are merged forcibly into one. All I ever do, these days, is read and write... so if my writing isn't up to snuff, then what the fuck am I even doing?

This is not to say that my previous college work has all been unequivocally brilliant, but... I thought this was a pretty good essay. Damn. I guess when I write my next thing, I'll really have to bring the thunder.