the NR monster, as i like to call it

my entire school career has been one of negative reinforcement of my worst habit: procrastination. i have learned over the years that i can leave things til the last second, do them half as good as i could have, or otherwise submit subpar work and still get amazing grades at the end of the day. hate me if you will, but it's true. the NR-monster has struck again, which is why i'm bringing this up in the first place.

a few weeks ago, i had to turn in a book review for my one real class of the semester (middle eastern politics, in case you're wondering). i knew i had to read 2 books from the first day of class, but did i read the books in a nice leisurely fashion over the following 4 weeks like i should have? of course not! why would i? no, instead i left it until the last week before the book review was due, and in doing so, was only able to read one of the two books assigned. i read the short one. the one that i did not read was written by none other than my very own professor. he often refers to this book (in jest, partly) as "the holy word" and "the most important book, after the Qu'ran." yes, he takes this book very seriously. but i had heard rumors about this professor and how he does not actually read the work that he assigns his students to write. so with this in mind, i set forth on the saturday night before the review was due to write the book review, all the while nurturing the attitude, "why should i read his work if he won't read mine?" i know. i'm terrible. lucky for me, he wrote a very thorough introduction to the book and i was able to summarize the book in 2 pages and then make some serious arguments about the similarities and differences of the two books. what a wise man (haha).

so anyway, fast forward three weeks to this afternoon when he begins to pass back the work that we've handed in so far. there were two short summaries that he randomly assigned us for other stuff, both of which had a big plus sign at the top instead of a grade. can anyone explain to me what this means? no one in class knew either. is it like in kindergarten when you got a smiley face if you did really good? or it could be a crooked X. but what does THAT mean? X marks the spot? right on the mark? i don't know. anyway, that's just a side note. the real interesting thing to me was when i got my book review, it had an A-/A as the grade. he couldn't decide which it was, so he wrote both. it's a common malady among professors in my department. and while it wasn't the A+++++++++++++++ that i was hoping for (like ralphie) i'm back to square one. procrastination pays. and don't you forget it, kids.