Ragtime Cowboy Joe

           

            I spent most of Thursday making two documents containing in one my second course essay corresponding with my TA’s comments on each point, and another that does the same thing with my first essay and Sean’s comments. Reading over Sean’s comments on my first essay convinced me even more that there is something wrong with his assessment of my second essay. At first I thought that 68% might have been a typo and that perhaps it should have been 78%, but I emailed him and he confirmed that 68% was my correct mark. Going over my first essay again, it’s clear to me that my second essay is better. Looking at his notes on my first essay, I read him at every point tearing it apart. There is nothing like those comments attached to my second essay. If one were to just read the comments for both essays and to guess which one got the lower mark, anyone would say it was the first essay. His comments clearly suggest that my second essay is better and yet the grade does not. This is the lowest mark I’ve ever gotten for an essay since my first essay in Academic Bridging eight years ago. Even the essay I wrote last year for the Knowledge and Reality course got a B and I had no idea what I was talking about in that paper. I am very upset.

            I responded to some of Sean’s comments in hopes that he simply misunderstood some of my points. I am scheduled to meet with him on Friday morning. If he’s automatically resistant to making a change in my mark, I don’t know if I have the debating chops to pin him down. He seems like someone with a black belt in argument. I can only hope that he’s open from the start to making changes.

            I watched an episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy got a job babysitting a child with behaviour problems who turned out to be twins. Their mother snuck the second boy in because it was hard enough getting a sitter for one brat let alone two. Just as they’d gotten Lucy all tied up and were about to set fire to her, their mother called, insisting on speaking to her. She was tied up at the hairdresser and couldn’t take the kids to a talent show they were performing in. She said if Lucy won first prize she could keep the $100. The amateur night was hosted by Ricky. He performed a novelty song that that had an interesting refrain: “I’m breaking my back, putting up a front for you.” Lucy won the $100 as she sang and danced to “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” with one of the boys’ frogs down her back.

            I finished preparing my argument, such as it is, for a higher mark, and tried to get back into the zone of studying for my exam. I still hadn’t figured out what I was studying though.