Saturday, June 10, 2006
What really is a C+
I won't lie.I have never been great at school.
For whatever reason I had to work that much harder than the next person just to get C's in school.
So in 9th grade when I somehow snuck into an advanced English course and saw the name "Mrs. Hirsch" on my schedule, I knew I was in for a long semester.
Prior to that year, I had a general idea of what I wanted to do with my life.
It involved anything dealing with sports and my current desire was to do radio like my idol - Jim Rome.
But soon after I was introduced to Mrs. Hirsch, the rest of my life as I would know it would change.
If you close your eyes and picture an older, grandmother type figure with grey hair and blue eyes, you would have a pretty good image of what Mrs. Hirsch looked like.
But don't let her looks fool you, she was the toughest teacher I had during my seven years at LACES.
Our very first essay assignment was to write about a topic of our choice.
A little nervous due to the horror stories I heard about her grading of papers, I jotted down a few ideas until I finally came up with one that I was comfortable writing about.
A couple weeks prior my favorite team in the world, the Los Angeles Dodgers just finished up a disappointing season. It was the combination of bad expensive contracts for washed up players (Kevin Brown) and a bad management (Kevin Malone) which led to the Dodgers struggles.
My topic would be on why the Dodgers struggled that season and what needed to be done to turn the franchise around.
Hardly your typical English essay by any means but I gave it a shot, turned it in, and wished for the best.
Two weeks later and full of red ink, I got my essay back from Mrs. Hirsch.
78/C+
You would have thought I just scored a 1600 on my SAT - I was thrilled. I went around and asked my peers what they got and there were a lot of 68's and 72's but not many above a 78.
Little did I know at the time that a C+ would give me the confidence and desire I needed to get started in this profession I have come to learn called journalism.
And who said being a C student was a bad thing? continue...
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I love that story.
I also love this quote I've seen a friend use as her MySpace name:
"Life is a teacher, you're going to get tested."
You got tested, managed a decent score, and learned an important lesson. It's so important to just deal with the unexpected, because it helps us persevere and accomplish more than we may have otherwise been able to accomplish.