My Calculus Test is Half Full

I was very nervous walking into my Calculus/Quant class this morning. Our exam yesterday was so challenging. Very complicated word problems. I've been studying non-stop. I don't have time for much of anything else but studying and my kids these days. Chris and I get virtually no time together. Here's my sked this week:

-7.45-8.45 am Macroeconomics
-9.00 - 10.30 am - Calculus/Quant
-11.00 - 12.30 pm - Microeconomics
-12.30-1.45 pm- Lunch, catch up on e-mail, logistics, like printing out homework, readings, etc.
-2.00 - 3.30 pm- Globalization Lecture
-4.00 - 5.30 pm"Studio Lab" - where quant and econ teachers are available fore questions, etc. On monday, I used this time to take an excel class.
6.00 pm - 9.00 pm Dinner with family, playing with kids, putting them to bed.
9.00 - 12 midnight - Usually going out to a cafe to study, so I'm not as tempted to fall asleep as I am at home.

I also sometimes get sucked into intense political discussions with classmates - Friday's was the role of the media in the U.S. - duh, it's my main topic of interest, but I managed to pull myself away but still didn't have much time to print out my homework.

Anyway, Thursday night, I went to the 1369 cafe in Inman square to study. OK, I've been pretty naive when I drink soy chai occasionally in the morning, but another, duh, realization - it has caffeine - surprise, surprise, I wasn't able to fall asleep til way after 1 am.

I guess I'm avoiding the main point of this blog entry. So I walk into my Calc/Quant class and Maria is handing out the tests. When I look at mine, I first see a note from her, "Bear with me! You are doing a great job...you work hard, and you are very positive! This is the right way! You just need practice! Thank you for all your efforts!" Too many exclamation points to see that I have passed. See, the grades don't count during the summer, and noone else at Harvard will ever see the grades, but my heart dropped into my stomache, and then I see the big "50%" - I haven't gotten a grade this low since 7th grade biology when I realized that in junior high I actually needed to study. My eyes started to well up with tears. I felt terrible. I was so embarrassed that I covered up my grade from the guy next to me. However, I couldn't help but peek at his grade - 100% - what? So what if he has been the Ceo and President from a major bank in South Korea and all of our problems are about profit maximization and bank interest calculations. So what that I've been a mom for 4 yerars and haven't done more than count diapers. I still need to be perfect! Ah, but then I saw my South Korean classmate's Tom and Jerry folder that he bought for class, had a little laugh and realized that I could see the glass - the exactly 50% half glass- half full - I got half of these hard questions right! Right on! Ok, enough with the exclamation points already!