After hearing from my instructor that my paper was ready to pick up, I decided that the best way to prepare for bearding the beast in its den (or office, as the case may be) would be for me to reread the paper in question. It had been a whole semester since I had turned it in, and I wasn’t even completely sure anymore what was in there.

You have to understand—I HATE rereading my own writing. Just contemplating it fills me with a feeling of dread. I know I have to do it—eventually—but I’d rather have all my skin grated off with a rusty cheese grater.

And to add another layer of weird to the crazy cake, I swing between thinking it is going to be a steaming pile of crap and thinking it might be the best thing my instructor got that semester. (I know—see crazy, above.)

As I finally read back over it, I noticed some typos, a few misused words, a few places I could have done a better job of explaining and organizing, but all in all, it was o.k. And I was satisfied with that.

Forward to this morning, waiting for the line outside the instructor’s office to dwindle. I was able to get some reading in for my paper-in-progress and not freak out too much, at least not until I was the last one outside the door. This is the instructor who can eviscerate you with her direct manner and constructive criticism, without really intending to. But she didn’t say anything about my paper that I didn’t already know, and she gave me some useful feedback I can apply to my current paper and my future thesis. And she gave me a 2 (roughly a high B). So I am more than satisfied with my grade (I would have been happy with a 3), and highly relieved that it’s over.

One down, two to go.