Final Grades and the Reckoning

Yes, it’s the Final Countdown (cue 80’s power jam and smoke machine).  Christmas gifts are purchased, my bags are packed, and I catch a flight tomorrow to begin my winter break.  I suppose that means that the Fall semester of Grown-Up University is done-zo and I have some updates and (drumroll please) grades to report.

As you all know from my last post/ exercise in self-flagellation, I am too far behind on my assignments to grade myself on the criteria I established back in August (thanks to Ellen for the encouragement to keep going anyway, not to mention my friends and hub).

Where does that leave me?  I feel like I have four options for Grown-Up University at this point:

1) Accept that I’m too far gone to ever catch up, and just give up on this whole thing,

2) Give myself another extension, like the one I granted myself after my vacation,

3) Grade myself on the criteria I set in August, and give myself Failing grades in everything, or

4) Re-write all the rules that I have made for myself, and just grade myself however the Heck I want to (in other words, cheat).

Option #1 is out: I have invested too much in this to stop now.  I vetoed Option #2 also, because I don’t want to delay the start of the “spring semester,” and even with an extension I would still be rushing some important tasks and goals.

So it comes down to options #3 or #4.  The hard-nosed, “fair” thing would be to give myself failing grades.  The problem is this: for all the guff I give myself, I honestly don’t feel like “failing” really captures what I’ve done over the past 3 ½ months.  Consider my updates from the past few weeks alone:

Food Science 101: My cooking class was one of the coolest things I’ve done in awhile.  We roasted chickens, made soufflés, perfected stock and soups and reductions galore.  I successfully completed both of my exams for this course.  I went (almost) one whole month of no eating out, practically unimaginable to me a few months ago.   I cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal using mostly local ingredients, and here’s the end result:

Thanksgiving 2010

I finished reading In Defense of Food (another great book by Michael Pollan), re-watched Food, Inc., and finished the companion book of essays.   I’ve cooked a vegetarian Mexican casserole (chilaquile from the Moosewood Cookbook), made tomato soup from scratch (America’s Test Kitchen), and had a dinner party complete with Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon and chocolate mousse.

Physical Education 101: I have stayed on track with my jogging program, largely thanks to the injection o’ motivation I received from watching the Spirit of the Marathon and Ultramarathon Man, and from reading No Need for Speed and Born to Run.  I can now run for nearly a half a mile without stopping to walk.  It’s not anything close the 3 miles I was expecting by now, but a lot compared to where I started (30 second run intervals).

Occupational and Leisure Studies 121: I completed the “4 Weeks; 4 Schedules” exam, which showed me that I am most efficient when I get out of my office and work at home or in a coffee shop 4-8 hours per week. I finished the Now Habit.

It’s a bit of a bind: I want to be objective, but my objective criteria no longer seem fair.

Fortunately, I am the not only a member of the Hair Club for Men, but also its president.  Seriously:  I can do whatever I want, because I am the teacher, Dean, and the sole student of this project.  Now that I have the benefit of retrospect, I see that my “semester” of work was maybe a teensy bit ambitious.  Maybe I set myself up to fail, at least by the standards I set for myself.

Note that this is a common problem with new college professors—they overestimate the work their students can do and end up revising their expectations.  As a psychologist, I know that goals are only attainable when they are both objective and realistic.  I did great on making my goals for this semester objective and specific; maybe not-so-great on the Realistic part.  Lesson learned for the Spring Semester.

So I’m going with option #4.  I’m just assigning myself the grade in each course I feel like I deserve.  Call it cheating, calling it setting myself up to succeed, potato-potahto, whatever, I am giving myself major bonus points and am wrapping up as planned.

Here are the final grades I feel that I deserve:

Food Science 101:  A

Physical Education 101: B

Occupational and Leisure Studies 121: C

On the other hand, I realize I am not done working on my healthy behaviors, and I don’t want to give this part of the experiment short-shrift because it’s too important to me.  January will mark the beginning of a new semester, and I will be moving some of the current, incomplete assignments from this semester to a continuation course I’m adding in the spring: Healthy Lifestyle 102.  (I will push Environmental studies to the summer, giving me  3 courses during each of 3 semesters).

Healthy Lifestyle 102 will be a continuation of my fitness and eating goals.  For example, I really to want to run a 5K, but I’m just not ready yet.  I’ve been dedicated; I’ve pushed myself enough, but not too much.  I think my approach has been wise.  I battled a knee injury from a nasty fall that set me back, and never fully caught up.  But given another 4 months, I will be ready.  I can even sign up for a 5K in the spring as one of my course exams.

Okay.  My work here is done.  I will be getting my new (more realistic) syllabi in place so I won’t be posting until January 1st, but I will check in and respond to comments whenever I can.  Look for a lot more blogging about healthy eating and exercise in the spring in Healthy Lifestyle 102, some self-examination and mindfulness exercises in Spiritual and Existential Studies 101, and a little purse-tightening in Financial Principles 101.  Happy holidays everyone!