confessions of an ivory tower castaway. breaking it down for the masses. what your grades really mean. according to the world of jon.



(A) we don¡¯t see many of these in my part of the woods. i saw them once or twice, but all pre-drinking age. and i don¡¯t even drink much. sadly. come to think of it, all pre-dancing age too. damn those As. i may never see one again. maybe i should go back to school just to ensnare another one of these suckers. right now the ones i have hang like championship banners from my rafters. shit. kobe and shaq have more banners than i do. kill me. wait, i am going back to school. i could rise from obscurity to the top of the world once again, just like the patriots.



(B) ah, here is the real meat and potatoes of academics. the B. above average but not quite good enough. the worst is getting that ambiguous B-plus. what do you do with those? it¡¯s like rounding all the bases but then stopping at third for no particular reason. i¡¯m talking about baseball here. sickos. luckily, i avoided the emotional trauma of a B-plus by exclusively only getting Bs and B-minuses. life was much less stressful that way. a B shows potential, but also a healthy glow of underachievement. the B is a wonder to behold. rain down Bs on me and i could leave college life happy and sedated. Bs are so cute too. round and curvaceous in every way. voluptuous even. huggable in every respect. who wants one of those pointy ass As anyway? take your damn As and jam it onto my transcript! i dare you!



(C) average. you are average. on a curve, without a curve, a C means you are only as good as the person next to you. sometimes even worse actually. the Cs gather after the semester to mock the Ds and Es. the great meritocracy that is college, ensures that someone¡¯s always worse off than you. even if it¡¯s only socially. the Cs buy something at wal-mart and pretend they bought it at target. a C is comparable to a meijer run at four in the a m. totally useless but it¡¯ll get you through the night. a C is treading water. forever. a C is the ¡°pick up the still shrink wrapped book twelve hours before the final and study study study¡± part of collegiate life. throw in the occasional nap during those twelve hours and you get a C-minus. throw in some benevolent grader, C-plus. you really can¡¯t lose either way. a C says ¡°some effort was made here.¡± a C says ¡°slacker with a brain.¡± a C says ¡°hard worker lacking in fundamental intelligence.¡± a C is getting to be the butt double for john goodman.



the C was, needless to say, my pick and roll. it was my three foot jump shot. well, that close to the basket, it¡¯s supposed to be a lay up. but hell, i can¡¯t jump for shit. it¡¯s a three foot jump shot. the Cs rallying cry is ¡°i learned more from my extracurriculars than my academics and i¡¯m still a good person dammit!¡± william wallace was a C. the Cs don¡¯t make it onto resumes. they are hidden in the obscure corners of fancy paper and referred to as, gpa: available upon request. like that doesn¡¯t blow the cover right off the damn thing. a C is coming home again. comfortable, yet ultimately inanely boring.



¡°whoa citizens!!!¡±



(D) oh, the nasty denizens of the deep. lurking in the back pocket of every gsi and professor is the dreaded D. used for ultimate humiliation. the beer bellied, ass cracking plumber of the grading world. yeah, you passed. *clap*clap* but here¡¯s a pitiful 1.0 to show for it. nice try buddy. getting a D will at least prevent you from re-taking a class again. but at this point, why bother? if you couldn¡¯t even cough up a C, you might as well have partaken (partook?) in some more late night tetris sessions and failed the damn thing altogether. that¡¯s my philosophy anyways (and it¡¯s a guaranteed good philosophy because i¡¯m a 87% accredited philosophy major). on the flip side, god probably hears more ¡°please please please gimme a D!¡± prayers than anything else from second semester seniors. except for maybe ¡°find me a boy/girlfriend god¡­.¡± actually, i¡¯ve never gotten one of these. surprise! which is good because i¡¯ve never had to pray to god or to get down on my knees in front of professors. to beg for a passing grade of course. sickos.



(E) get off the gravy train. we¡¯ve reached the end of the line. you¡¯re walking. for the rest of your life. if only a failing grade in class had as much cachet as a failing dot com on the resume. i would be a potential millionaire for sure. i¡¯ve gotten more than my fair share of Es. hey, i¡¯m a martyr. someone¡¯s gotta keep the curve down. someone¡¯s gotta take one for the team. if not me, then who? you? please. it takes a certain mindset to sacrifice for the greater good. i¡¯ve done it. more than once. that¡¯s re-martyring. like dying. and then getting up. and then willingly getting chopped down again. whoa. glorify me.



there really should be a prize fund distributed to E students. at the beginning of each semester, everybody puts in a fiver, and the Es get to split the pot at the end. the path to a high curve is always paved by the snores and drools of E students. it¡¯s only fair to reward them now for a career at mcdonald¡¯s later. damn, at least buy me a drink or something. although, for the record, there¡¯s absolutely nothing wrong with being a forty-five year old mcdonald¡¯s assistant manager. it¡¯s the american dream in super sized portions. actually, this far down the academic ladder, i hope you used all that free time to learn something useful and socially productive. like knitting. or sewing. or defending a zergling rush. if you¡¯re like me, you¡¯ve gazed deeply into the mirrored surface of your toilet water as you pissed away a $150,000 education. liberating isn¡¯t it? feel light and free? no more kidney pain?



there is something worse than getting an E actually. it¡¯s not proper to mention it in civilized circles, but since i¡¯m broaching all topics today, i feel the need to say it here. the dreaded ¡°double E.¡± that¡¯s failing the exact same class. twice. to break it down. because some of you good students might not grasp this concept at first glance. it¡¯s like failing a class once. retaking the same course. with all the same books. with all the same stolen photocopied notes. with slightly different tests. and then going down in a glorious flaming mess again. anyone ever been cursed by a double E? yeah, uh, me neither. i¡¯ve heard rumors of a triple E. but at that point they should really just drag you out to the diag and have you drawn and quartered. it¡¯s the only humane thing to do. even i¡¯m not that bad. three times!!! losers.



(W) the big bad leather wearing bikers you see at the bar down the street. just one is hardly significant. two might hurt you. but get three or more together and you best run for your life. withdraws are a birthright. every man woman and child gets one free ¡°get out of jail¡± card. i read that in the bible somewhere. honest. sometimes you just have to toss the gun, ditch the ammo, throw up your white panties in arm flailing surrender and bolt for relative safety. eat the damn W. it¡¯s not so bad. a W adds character. who wants to achieve every goal they set anyway? not me. if you haven¡¯t withdrawn from a class, you haven¡¯t really lived. so says the super super senior with no degree in sight.



(I) oh shit! i was still registered for that class? when was the final? three weeks ago? when was the midterm? when was the class? um. whoops.



let me tell you, you could get some mad crazy triple letter scrabble words with my transcript. you¡¯ll never run out of consonants with this bad boy. there¡¯s a few vowels too, sneaked in for good measure. that would be a fun game. spell the biggest word you can using the letters on your transcript. bet i¡¯d win. is icbicacebabbecew a word? it should be. anyone wanna guess my gpa? fifty bucks says you can figure it out counting with only one hand. that¡¯s all i can say. i¡¯m sworn to secrecy by the disgraced ghosts of my ancestors. and i¡¯m kept silent for fear of my mom finding out. i can say no more. save this post people. show it, along with my two figure paycheck stubs, to your kids when they hit college age. if that doesn¡¯t keep them on the straight and narrow. well. there¡¯s always mcdonalds.