A good ego bruising...

It's that time of year again- time to get law school grades. So far, I only have one posted. And it's not that good- basically a law school C. Not the kind of grade that means you'll be a bad lawyer, but not the kind of grade that rockets you to the top of your class, either. Normally I wouldn't really care, but...

I loved this class. Nerd that I am, I usually like going to school. But this was an especially interesting law school class that kept me awake and thinking despite it's 8:00 am timeslot! This was probably my favorite class in all of law school, and I showed it the respect it deserved.

I read all the material! I took notes! I thought about the material in my spare time, even! And I studied hard for the test.

And I got a mediocre grade.

Now I know my classes are full of bright people, the grades are curved, and anything can happen on exam day. But you just think that in life when you put effort into something, when you really work hard, your efforts are going to be rewarded. Instead of an "A", my efforts were rewarded with a big fat "eh."

Complicating things is the fact that my relationship with grades has not always been 100% healthy. One of the things I have really struggled with is my perfectionistic streak. For many years, I basically judge myself based on how well I performed, and it was pretty much never good enough for me. It's wrong and I know it, but that's how I thought about myself for most of my life.

These past two years, I have improved a lot in being happy with my results and being proud of myself for my effort. And I haven't even gotten into the real world of a full time job, where I can really help people and see that what I am doing is actually worth something.

I know now that a funny thing happens when you stop worrying about being perfect: you can work even harder and not concentrate on how your performance will affect your sense of self-worth.

That's what I did this semester, and it felt great. I worked my booty off and learned a ton. And now that I have my first grade of the semester, I'm afraid that my increasingly healthy attitude toward work might have taken some important nervous meticulousness away from my exam-writing and hurt my GPA. Maybe this is why so many confident, smart people don't have the best grades?

Or maybe I just got unlucky and had a bad day. Or maybe I don't mesh with how this (still awesome) professor grades. Or perhaps I --*gasp*-- just didn't get it as well as the other smarties in that class.

Who knows? I don't.

What kind of life lesson is this?!? LOL.

PS: holidays were great. My family and friends and fiance are all awesome and I'm very, very blessed.