Why am I Passing?

 

So this picture is the notes I have taken from my last two Latin American history classes. Needless to say, I'm not sure if I'm devoting all of my attention to the course. In my defense October 28th was "movie day" so taking notes wasn't all that necessary.

Looking through my notebook I'm reflecting on my career as a university student. All the times I've dozed off in class, all the times I didn't do the readings, and all the classes I've just missed, and I'm forced to wonder why am I passing? You'd think I'd have made some irreversible mistake by now, like I'm not paying attention and the prof changes the due date of the paper, or I try to study my notes and all I learn is that I'm awesome at drawing dragons. But here I am in my third year and I've yet to ever miss or fail any exam/paper.

The only explanation I can come up with is simply I am the luckiest university student in the world. That somehow I've managed to listen at key moments in the lectures and am able to magically throw words onto a page that makes up a coherent paper. For example, my poli-sci midterm. It was a take-home exam, I had to write two short essays. Not only is poli-sci one of my weaker subjects, but I had so many other papers to write I polished off the midterm in an afternoon. I wasn't confident in the least, I figured if I passed it would be awesome. But I get it back and what?! 85 on the first essay and 90 on the second. There must have been some mistake. 

I'm not writing this to let you all know I'm going to buckle down and be the best student I can be from now on, and I certainly am not bragging about how I get awesome grades without trying. Because in all honesty when I am writing a paper I do usually put a fair amount of effort into it, I just never feel it deserves as high of mark that it usually gets. And it's true, if I really concentrated in class or started working on my papers weeks in advance, then I'd probably get better grades or at the very least feel that I deserve my grades. But guess what? I'm going to continue doing exactly what I have been because, let's face it, it's working. Even right now in my peripheral vision I can see a stack of books I should be reading for my paper that I should be writing. But will I start it? Maybe, we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow.