This was the sunset when I picked my family up at the airport – It seems appropriate hereFirst I’d like to begin my post with a rant.  Those of you that are closest to me have heard this rant already (sorry to be repeating myself) but I think it’s important to write out rants sometimes in order to get perspective.  I’m still working on healthy perspectives – as I am sure I will be until I’m 100 and then maybe I won’t care.  Here goes:  I so very happily went to my “graduation planning” meeting with my advisor about the end of September.  I’m right on track, have all of the necessary classes scheduled etc etc.  Last spring, I was talking to a guy in one of my classes that was graduating and heading off to law school at Georgetown – he told me, as we complained about a specific professor who likes to screw over your grades – that it sucked that the requirement to graduate with honors went up from a 3.7 to a 3.8 that year and he was barely skimming by.  So I looked to see where I was at.  Starting fall semester I am at an 3.85 – phew! I thought.  So in this meeting I ask the advisor what I need to graduate with honors this year and was directed to a website that lists all the required gpa’s for honors in each college.  I am in the college of humanities and this requirement comes from a complicated algorithm based on the graduation statistics of the last 5 years of each college top 4% and changes each year.  Long story long…..I need a 3.879 to get that stupid freaking cord to wear around my neck.  Even finishing with straight A’s in my last 4 classes – It only takes me to a 3.868 so I will miss it by .011.  Insert many swear words at this point in my rant! My only choices available to avoid this travesty is to retake my two A- classes and one B+ class  and get solid A’s or to take 3 more classes and get all A’s.  Neither of these will happen because I am sooooooo done with writing papers and I refuse to take any logic classes again or the “Harvard educated Simpsons character butthead” who wouldn’t give me an A anyway (he screwed up one of my fellow classmates 4.0).  I think I’m going through the stages of grief because now I’m just depressed. 

After all of that, these philosophical questions were slapped in my face (HARD), do I work my butt off to get A’s (ignoring my friends and sometimes neglecting my husband and kids) for the intrinsic value of having done my best, or do I want A’s for the extrinsic accolade of a colored cord around my neck? – and has all my hard work gone to waste because there will be no difference in my diploma and a student with the attitude “C’s get degrees”?

This is where I tell you I sent B, Lelu, TT and Ari off to Disneyland & Universal Studios-Harry Potter World without me over fall break because I had too much homework.  At first I really felt sorry for myself, but then shifted perspective and enjoyed three gloriously silent days in my house that stayed clean the entire weekend, while I did about 35 hours worth of homework plus prepared for and gave a lesson in RS.  And a lightbulb went off in my head within the realization I was sitting in my house alone because 1) I work my butt off because I know I am capable of getting an A and 2) I want to be a good example to my kids. I also really wanted that stupid cord… I don’t want to miss out on adventures with my kids and I don’t want them to think they aren’t truly my first priority so this is a very fine line I walk.  Yet this one time without me, B and the kids as far as I could tell from consistent snapchat photos had a great time!

And this will be the last time I will skip out on the fun for my obsessive need to get an A