Another Break Down to Someone Who Doesn't Know Me

ENG120H

I totally dread writing. I dread the writing process. This semester I accidentally signed up for three writing classes. What I meant by accident is that I didn't know one of them involved so much writing and reading novels. English 120H, my only 100-level class this semester, turns out to be quite scary. And in class today, I got my paper back. I worked really hard on this paper. I mean I finished it with more than a week ahead of the due date to get it revised and stuff.

 I tried really hard, because I really didn't want to believe that I sucked at writing that much. I really wanted to get through these three writing classes. I even handed the paper into the professor, believing it was an A paper. After announcing to the class that a large majority got A's, I got mine back. I slowly flipped through the pages, read through the comments on the margins and the last page, B-.

Ok, maybe you'd say B- isn't that bad. But B- meant close enough to C+. I imagine my professor writing that B with her solid red-ink pen. She probably stared at it for half a second, and added the - to the B and made it a B-. B- is an insult compared to B. It's an extra detail that says 'kinda, sorta, not so good'.

It was especially embarrassing because I really felt like I poured my heart into the paper. I felt like I would blow my professor away with my creative analogies and beautiful uses of anaphoras, jargon, parallelism, and other rhetorical devices. She said  there would be absolutely no rewrites.

After class, I asked her if I could rewrite it anyway so I can know what it takes to get an A paper. She said that wouldn't be a problem and she said we could go over what I did wrong in my paper. We did, and I felt the unreasonableness in her tone. She just stuck so strongly on the things she wrote on the margins. To be honest, I don't think I deserved that B- still. I think it was at least B. Tears were running down my face and snot was just covering up my face, I felt it. "Ah, what the freakin hell" I thought in my head. "What the freaking hell. Crap." But I couldn't stop. And I spoke with that out of breath voice, where every word was interrupted by a heavy breath and a shoulder reflex going up, back, and down.

"I really appreciate your criticism, and I really want to become a better writer. Now I know what I need to work on and I will work on it."

I could tell she was grossed out by my snot and tears. I wiped myself down on the sleeves to my soft maroon jacket. She will remember those snot stains and those tears that fell like beads.

I don't think it was completely the paper that drove me to break down like that. It was just a lot of stuff building up. Lots of disappointment, grief, and stress building up. I'm really surprised my hair is still in tact sometimes.

God, wrap me in Your love. Wrap me with it like a cocoon. Wrap it on me so tightly that I loose the air in my lungs. I rather feel Your love than breathe.