Lately I feel like I'm floundering in academics, writing and otherwise, and yet I'm not faced with any dilemma visible to an outsider. No Bs so far this year, save for one on my progress report this quarter--the result of an 82 on a French test, with only three other grades in the class. I'm sure to most everyone (including myself) all As do not constitute "floundering." I think what I'm feeling is something difficult to approach in such a public place, as there's the risk of seeming pompous or overly concerned, but I think there's little I can do at this point to assure you of my laziness and apathy. If you haven't already been convinced, you probably never will be.

So, with those risks in mind, I shall proceed.

Maybe this is all in light of my growing concern over college. UVA's price tag is staring me in the face, and I know it's still early, but it's where I want to go and there's only one way for me to get there, and that's to snatch one of their rarer-than-an-octopus-in-a-willow-tree scholarships (I will look back on that comparison and wonder what the hell I was thinking). Unsatisfied with my 1890, which so far has been at least slightly lower than my classmates' scores, I'm anxious to see about my ACT scores. And there's the SAT subject tests to be mastered, and the stellar application essay to be written, and then there's the jumping through fire and rescuing small children from pits of starving, fanged, mythological monsters. I'm still shocked at what's required of college applicants today, even when you disregard the growing outrageousness of the pricetags.

It probably isn't helping that I've been keeping up with the "Cyberethics and Webwriting" class that I attended while visiting. They have a class blog for additional discussion, which is appropriate considering the types of things they discuss. I'm blown away by the writing, which is succinct, beautiful, and clever. Preston, for instance, writes of Gattaca (which, ironically, is one of my favorite movies): "One has to wonder how a society such as the one portrayed in the Ethan Hawke vehicle Gattaca has developed technology sufficient to travel to the moons of Saturn, yet lacks comparable advances in skin moisturizing. As I watched the uneven, flounderingly formulaic film, as required by my instructor, at 12:30 on a Monday night, staring at a grown man rubbing a coarse stone over his waxed pecs on a seashore as waves crashed around him at dawn, I began to question the values of an education in the liberal arts." Read his whole post here. He's even able to tastefully make fun of his professors, who moderate the forum. My own writing is vapid and vacant in comparison, and "Cyberethics" isn't even an English class.

I've been excelling in my own English class, in which every other student is a year older than me. Class periods seem to lengthen and stretch as every day brings a new poem that the class can groan over, collectively. It's rare that anyone has anything intelligent to say (sometimes myself included), save a few "I agree"s or "I don't like this poem"s, which is shocking considering the overall intelligence of the student body at my school. Mrs. Abernathy has resorted to calling on people for comments. "Holly, what do you think?" she'll ask, and whichever student she calls is startled and sits up a little straighter, stammering some jibberish about how they like or dislike something entirely trivial and unimportant to the piece.

To give you some idea of Mrs. Abernathy's desperation, she left this comment on my rough draft for a research paper due next week: "Oh, Glynnis. You do not know what it does for my mind, heart, soul--and even eyes--to read an intelligent, thoughtful, well-written paper. I was just contemplating a draught of hemlock, a big draught of hemlock, when I pulled your paper from the stacks. I feel like the character[s] from a Beckett play-- 'I can't go on,' 'I must go on,' 'I will go on.' Thanks to you and your lovely paper, I will live to grade for another day." This is the same woman who is a Scrabble legend at ASFA--the woman who Carolyn and I have in mind while we strengthen our scores in games against each other.

In the end, I am praised for my participation, my ability to complete assignments, and my paper writing. All of these things I feel satisfied with--I participate without dominating, I turn things in on time and put forth reasonable effort, and my papers are carefully crafted, if always the night before the assignment is due. But in reality, the class itself has done very little for me. Mrs. Abernathy is one of my favorite teachers--many times we will share a grin, snicker, or sly glance over some blather made by another student--but I don't feel especially challenged by her class. It's more demanding in that the assignments are much more time-consuming than any others I'm given, but a distinction should be made between time-consuming and challenging. If anything, her biggest assignment--the research paper--is the type that I find challenging (or at least on par with the type of difficulty I might expect from that class), and we've been building up to it all year, when in reality I probably could have done it in a single grading period.

Here's a disclaimer: with all my other classes, the workload in English has been reasonable and forgiving of a busy schedule, and the fact that Abernathy is so fond of group work when most of the class doesn't read or keep up with assignments more than compensates for my inflated grade due to adequate writing. Frequently, group assignments inflate other students' grades while deflating my own.

This isn't just something I've experienced in English class, though. With my poetry, too, I sometimes wonder what it does to be praised for work I only consider to be mediocre. What kind of motivation is to be found there? On the other hand, for someone so ready to self-deprecate, praise can be helpful. It can keep the bottom from falling out, at least. And praise from people you admire--a sincere compliment from someone who usually doesn't give them--is especially rewarding.

It's the latest in what I've been struggling with--trying to find some way for praise to fit in when I feel so inferior and ill-equipped. In short, this entry could have been a mere "Gee, I sure wish I received compliments better." But then, you all know my affinity for prolixity (and fancy words).