Lynn,
Ah, the exuberance of the curious scholar.
With today’s technology and the ability to access any sort of information in as fast as one’s internet connection will allow, the need to know instantly is prevalent among so many in society today.
Gone are the days when students would anxiously hold vigil next to their mailboxes in order to ascertain scores from that semester’s classes. And whether such grade reports needed to be altered or hidden from the prying and judgmental eyes of one’s parental units.
This gave way to learning, via telephone, the outcome of a term’s worth of work. Yes, a number dialed to a university extension would connect to a computerized guide who would prompt one to punch keys on the phone to move through steps to hear subject, followed by course number, trailed by section number, leading to a terse relay of the letter grade.
Then with Al Gore’s senatorial contributions to the creation of the world wide web, or internet, came a daily-evolving beast of rapidly disseminated information. As fast as the online sphere became, so too did the technology adapt to better utilize such abilities and satiate the never-satisfied hunger of users, read people, to heap onto their plates of ever-shrinking portable electronic devices to ascertain what it is they want to know.
Grades became available through outdated-on-the-day-they-were-created university web pages where students could logon (does anyone even still use that term?) and, in black and white – as the screens were back then – see their semester grades, akin to a scene in the now-classic film WarGames, starring a doe-eyed and mischievous Matthew Broderick. Watch it and laugh at how little the computers are capable of - and live in fear of the message it conveys, which is one similar to all of the Terminator movies.
Ooh, you should watch those, too, and laugh at what Arnold Schwarzenegger will do for a paycheck (the third one, not the first two). Though Salvation was a bit of a knee-slapper as well. That's a term meaning funny, as I am unsure if people today are familiar with such outdated slang.
Anyhow, this paved the way for how grades are now delivered: one logs in (as if one becomes a part of the system, rather than just a rider of it – as the “on” from days of yore seemed to signify) to an online college web site where one scrolls through various drop down menus to attain the desired information where it is displayed in all of its Technicolor and vibrant glory for the student to revel in her or his triumph, or languish in the agony of mediocrity, or even wallow in the pitiful depths of failure.
How will this cinematic-like scenario play out for you? If only you could hold on until grades are revealed to all – then you might enjoy the uncertainty, the worry, the doubt, and even engage in a bit of prayer to the gods of academia that if, and only if, you get good grades you promise to dedicate yourself anew to scholarly pursuits during the next semester. And, much like an alcoholic – waking up underneath a bridge caked in his own vomit and surrounded by broken bottles of Boone’s wine and Olde E declaring he will never again consume such beverages – you fly straight, for a while. Then you backslide and sip from that sweet-fruity twist-off lip of Strawberry Hill that is slacking from schoolwork, and divert your attention to less-academic endeavors such as partying, calling in sick to work to ride the couch to channel-surf, and engage in whatever the current equivalent of tipping cows in a pasture is.
Alas – you shall never know! As this blasted mechanism of e-mail allows for twenty-four/seven communication with anyone and everyone who uses it.
That you have read through this entire diatribe up to this point means you are hopeful that somewhere in this rambling prose piece of a professor’s perception of an appropriate response to your inquiry therein rests your grades.
Fear not, inquisitive Lynn! Do not yet go gentle into that good night; old age, such as mine, burns and rages at the close of day – it is up to thee to rage, rage against the dying of the light (with my apologies to Dylan Thomas for co-opting his most infamous piece into my already extended humourous and albeit amusing-only-to-me invective). Wise men at their end – or at least near it, you hope, yeah? – know dark is right because their words had forked no lightning, only mine (once again, indebted to D.T.).
To finally arrive near the end of what could and maybe should have been a simple answer – thy score on the final clocked in at ninety-four; your overall course grade flew in at ninety-three, so what will show up when you get around to checking online (be sure to send former senator/vice-president and current environmentalist Al Gore your thanks for his part in inceptioning (this is a new word I have just coined, as a Google search turns up nothing – though if you have not checked out Christopher Nolan’s fine film Inception you should do so sometime, as it does not disappoint (unless you hate disappointment, then in that case don’t watch it since it totally does by not completely answering what you most want to know at the end (hope I didn’t spoil it for you))) the grade you will see is an a. Upper or lower case, an a is still an a.
So to finally answer your inquiry: yes – it seems I could send you your grades on the final and for the course.
I certainly hope you paid careful attention to locating the information you wanted to know. It is somewhere in all that text; I am aware that you most likely scanned the message for numbers and finding none relating to your grade, had to re-read the entire message in order to unearth exactly what your grades are. As I pointed out in one of these paragraphs, I find this way of delivering the news quite comedic.
Break a leg whenever heading onstage and good luck in your criminal justice endeavors.
Hope you enjoyed the class and have gained a Homer Simpson-like appreciation of poetry. Wait, I meant Lisa Simpson-like.
Au revoir.
Santiago Lopez, M.A.
Adjunct English Lecturer
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