the power of positive

An amazing thing happened today. In my grad school class, my professor handed back our term papers at the beginning of the class. I was totally unprepared for this, since I just turned this paper in last Friday, and most of our papers topped 20 pages. That's a lot for one weekend. But there it was, graded, commented on, and ready for me. I've been pretty worried about this paper; I hated writing it, and I knew it could have been better. I've been coming up with things I should have researched more all weekend. It's 40 percent of my grade. He's a historically harsh grader, and I've got stiff competition as the youngest one in the class. Criticism was scrawled on every page. I couldn't take it any more and flipped from page 5 to page 14, where he had written my grade before the endnotes and works cited. A. He loved it.

This experience proves my theory that I am more motivated by praise than anything else. I was on my game in this class today. Seriously, spot on. I asked the best questions and made the best points. Even the grad students had nothing on me. It was glorious. Call me smart and I will be, just to prove I've earned the praise.

Which means... maybe I was all along.