passing, committing

first of all, i would like to report (where "report" = "wish out loud") that i am unbowed by my ridiculously awful comparative politics exam grade. "satisfactory minus" (and yes it came all spelled out like that) my ass: i know what's on that list. i can tell you the causal mechanisms and the major criticisms for every single piece. but -- tell me again how i was supposed to cram seventy books into three essays into five hours?

truthfully, i am a little crushed. as many of you will remember, i worked very hard on that exam. but apparently a pretty flowchart doth not a competent political scientist make. in what can only be attributed to schadenfreude (unlikely) or very poor social skills (almost certain), i was informed of my exam grade in a two line email beginning "don't be bummed..." at eight o'clock on saturday morning. we had already been informed that everyone passed (yay!), and were told to expect our specific grades and comments on monday. MONDAY NOT SATURDAY. anyway, i had to go around with that big fat bummer all weekend, while i was trying to write a paper and my classmates were still all carefree and shit. the upside of all this is that i only cried in front of one classmate, and he was nice about it, and then we went to the beach.

here is what i learned about the exam process: unless you are some sort of frightening IT-like super brain, it does not pay to be fun and synthetic with your knowledge. in fact, it does not pay to learn everything on the list. concentrate on a subsection. concentrate on your handy dandy texas style five (ok, ten) paragraph essay.

ANYWAY, the moral of the story, lest i forget it, is that I PASSED THE FUCKING THING. fine.

the second thing (this is what we call a commitment mechanism, folks! you can read all about it in my exam! or not!) is that everyone should read i blame the patriarchy's work on fashion and misogyny. i don't have time to respond right now -- too much party ideology in america -- but i assure you that i will. it will go something like this: RIGHT ON TWISTY!!! you are so right! and also here is some amplification of your point! wheeeee!