Bio 110 is officially over today. We had our lab final, which went just fine, and I got told that I had the best lab report by far and would have knocked everyone's grade down if we were on a system where the highest score set the curve... which was a bit awkward, but I enjoyed hearing (it was a pretty cool report, actually. I could have done it a bit better if I'd had more time to mess with wording/proofreading, but I tried a new sort of approach I've never gone with before and it came out great).
Not that this makes up for yesterday's real final, of course. A 100 on the lab final today wouldn't be able to bump my grade back up to a 4.0, and the whole thing could only have had a negative impact on my grade (and that only if I'd done really badly). It's still nice to end the course on a positive up-note though, especially since I felt like everything else had gone great up to yesterday. This gets rid of the bad taste it left in my mouth a bit, even if I am stuck with an A- now (the horror).
More interestingly, a strong A in lab means that if I get a B+ for whatever reason I'll /know/ it's because I got hammered on my essays for no valid reason (they weren't bad). Which, in turn, means I'll know not to ask this teacher for a letter of rec (which could be a problem... I probably need a letter from the pre-med advisor, unless I can get the kind people at Vanderbilt to provide one for me beyond the cover they offered).
An A- is looking likely for my final grade. An actual A is still possible if a curve gets applied to the whole class (even if it's a tiny curve, it would probably still get it done for me). We'll see what happens.
At any rate, I've gotten a good read on myself out of this class - and that's invaluable. It wasn't easy like some of my other classes, and I found out that I was perfectly capable of getting it done well up until the very end, when I got too arrogant to study or... whatever it is that gave me that face-palm moment. I also got that I'm not at the top of the top - I was getting low A's and an A- on the tests, nothing like solid 100s.
It goes to show the importance of hard work, I guess. I've been on a reading binge lately, going through the works of Haruki Murakami, and that's something he talked about a lot in his pseudo-memoir. It's also a theme that creeps up in most of his books. How very few people are actually truly exceptional, and even those who seem so have a pool of talent that can dry up. Working hard can go a long way in compensating for lacking talent, and not working hard because of talent can ruin you if your talent pool ever does dry up and you're not able to handle it. (He's a fun author, and has some good books worth checking out if you want to read someone more interesting than me).
All this said, it's break time! *(For three days).
I'm going to make the most of it though: early tomorrow morning I'm heading out to this beach and wildlife preserve I go to every year tomorrow morning. I'm stuck going by myself this time, but it will still be a nice break from work. There's a ton of birds, and usually you get to see lots of wild deer and ponies too. Sometimes you get to see something really neat - I remember once there was an epically huge crab that just jumped in front of me and ran faster than you could possibly believe. And speaking of Murakami, I'm bringing his newest book with me as well.
Once I'm back, I'll find out what my grade in Bio was, and will dive headfirst into 210.
