Cum Laude

I stopped short of a 'cum laude' by two miserly marks in my first ever assignment after X number of years.
It was however refreshing to smile over my 'second upper' grade, from my 6000 word write up, that nearly killed me when I tried (and succeeded) to squeeze a voluntary assignment into my PhD timetable that is bursting at the seams.

This timetable is of my own making (as is the case for most PhD candidates) and the said assignment, as I reiterate, was voluntary. I ended up with this assignment, in my enthusiasm while signing up for a course offered to masters students at my department, when I mistakenly answered yes to the question: 'Will you opt to do the assignment?'

The course took a whole week of my life and the assignment took an additional Y number of days. In total, I suffered great discomfiture as I typed fiendishly, mostly in tears, wondering why I often chose the hardest and roughest path to getting anywhere. There I was, writing 6000 words on one topic, yet I would have used much fewer words to convince rich people in an outlandish gallery somewhere (preferably in Rio where I could also go dance Samba afterwards) that I was a wonderful artist, which indeed I am.

As the deadline approached, my tears increased commensurately, but I assure you, I proceeded to beat that deadline albeit with great effort, and it paid off. I wish though, I could have given it just a little bit more so that I could talk endlessly about my 'cum laude.'

Anyhow, I am still very pleased with myself, and I intend to learn from the reasons of my missing those two marks. I will not pop any champagne therefore, but will now put in more energy into future cum laudes. In fact, I want my whole life to be a cum laude, not because I am going to do everything perfectly, but because I will try to keep learning, and learn to keep trying.

(For those who may not know, cum laude means: Freakin' awesome!)

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