My English professor handed back our research papers today.  Remember, the one that inspired this night…

It was one of those papers that when you’re writing it, it seems like the greatest idea in the world and then when you turn it in all of a sudden it seems like complete shit.  And you know the professor is going to tear it apart and hate it and think you’re an idiot. I knew it was based on a sound idea, but after four days of working on it and staring at it, I felt like maybe all the time was wasted and I turned out a terrible essay.

When I was looking at people’s topics, I thought “Oh my god, that’s such an easy topic, why didn’t I even think of that?”  Instead, I wrote it on Hemingway’s use of indefinite articles and pronouns to create ambiguity in dialogue.  Finding supportive facts was so hard, hence why it took 35 hours of continuous work and revising and revising.

So the professor pulled them out of his bag today and I immediately looked to the girl who I had been discussing the paper and ideas all along with and about peed my pants in excitement and in fear.  People’s names kept getting called and I waited as he just handed them off to each person, watching them walk straight of the room either happy or looking defeated.  Finally he said my name and had to look around because he still doesn’t know who I am, mainly because I refuse to talk in this class.  (It’s at 10am and it’s analyzing short stories. I already mentioned here how I think analyzing stories is bullshit and that maybe most writers just write for the entertainment. So I don’t talk, I just puke up what he wants to hear in his essay tests and get A’s.)

Anyway, so he called my name and I stood up and ran after him, literally kind of pushing through people with my giant purse.  He looked me straight in the eye, handed it to me and said, “thank you” which he hadn’t said to anyone else.  I flipped to the back where his challenging red pen marks said, “Despite the documentation errors, this is a very strong essay. A minus.”   I kind of screamed in the hallway.  My MLA formatting was so wrong and awful, but I did that at the 34th hour of working on it and at 1 am, I didn’t care anymore. If I hadn’t screwed it up so much, I would have gotten an A plus.
This professor is so nit picky about word choices, formatting, comma usage that I was convinced he would tear mine apart.  Instead, I’m getting an A for the class!
I was so excited I ran to the bus just staring at it.  I saw ZB standing on the steps waiting for his bus and nearly attacked him flapping my paper back and forth.  I told him all about it and that we needed to go out and celebrate tonight, since tomorrow is our last day of class before Thanksgiving.  He agreed.  I jumped on the bus and found a seat in the back where I always sit.  I sat next to the kid I sat near on the way to class that morning, just grinning and holding my paper.  He looked at me and said, “I saw you flirting with that guy out there.”  I laughed and said, “Haha, hardly.  That’s just ZB, but thanks for stalking me. Now look at this fantastic paper!”  He laughed and brought up ZB again and I just kept smiling.