One of Those Stories You Hear About

I awoke this morning with an email from Johnny Mac telling me to go pick up my thesis readings, because I was going to be pleasantly surprised. So I did, and boy was I. I got a Summa reading from a very prestigious, brilliant, tenured faculty member, whom I will henceforth refer to as Hot Pocket (take that as a hint, but if you need more help, I'll oblige you...he's kind of a big deal). So I take it back to my room, in a state of euphoria. Then Johnny Mac emails me saying that something's amiss in Hot Pocket's reading. The comments do not match a Summa ranking. They seem more like a very low Cum reading.

So we talk about it and decide to keep hush hush because 1) Hot Pocket is notoriously weird 2)The reading and criticisms were lazy, skimpy, extremely poorly argued, typed in Courier, and handed in weeks late. As a result, I rationalized that Hot Pocket figured that the strengths were self-evident and reflected in the ranking, so he'd just point out the flaws.

Not so. A few hours later, I check my email, and Hot Pocket has emailed me with the subject "Thesis." Oof, my heart skips. Will I get a really low Cum reading, or worse a No Distinction? Only clicking my mouse will tell. It turns out I did fine. I got two Magna readings, so I'm incredibly proud, especially since Hist/Lit seems to hate my writing style. But after getting a Summa reading for several hours, a Magna is anticlimactic. And some members of the Hist/Lit faculty are really upset at Hot Pocket for not taking senior theses seriously. But who the hell cares! If you would have told me I would get Magna in the death throes of January, I would have probably slappeed your face for being so cruel, Zsa Zsa style.

On another note, this doesn't really affect my graduation at all considering I don't really come close to having Summa grades. So unless I bomb my orals, I'm sitting pretty. Not that any of this matters considering I do not have a job for next year and honors don't matter for bunk in the real world. But it's still a pretty nice thing.