The Final (grade) Countdown

Oh, dear lord! It’s been a very long time, folks. The end of the block got very busy and then there was winter break. I am so sorry.

I don’t even know where to begin. How about Math? There is nothing much to say. The class got interesting, but not any more difficult. I finished with a 100% as my final grade. Who would ever have thought that me, the B- average math student in high school would receive an A+ in math in college? I was pleasantly shocked.

Writing class was very busy at the end. We had our first big essay due. I wanted to do well. I enjoy expository writing, and I hope that it showed in my final copy. We were required to do peer editing in class. There is nothing I hate more than peer editing. Kristofer, my friend from Boston U who is getting his masters degree in secondary English education agrees with me. It is incredibly frustration to read a poorly written essay. I want to take it out of the other student’s hand and just rewrite it for him. It would be easier than trying to correct all the mistakes and contest issues. Also, it leaves those of us with fairly good writing skills out because we don’t get edited by other good writers. Getting “good!” with a smiley face next to a paragraph or “I don’t know what you mean” are not helpful comments. I don’t know how I did on the paper yet, but I’ll get my grade in class tomorrow morning. The class is not over until March, so no final grade yet.

Gastronomy was actually very fun the last two weeks of class. I did very well on a few exams, quizzes, and a group presentation. We studied some modern food movements as well as the controversy over genetically modified foods. On the last day of class, I accidentally told Prof. Forrest to “shut up” when she announced that we were supposed to get a foot of snow over the weekend. Oops. There I go again with my lack of a filter. It didn’t affect my grade too much because I came out with 97% for my final grade.

Ok, now there is Product Knowledge. The last two weeks of class were spend on squashes, herbs, apples, pears, grapes, berries, stone fruits, citrus fruits, bananas, melons, specialty fruits, nuts, seeds, cheese, yogurt, milks, and creams. Oh my. It was a lot of info to take in. At this point, I was going to the storeroom every other day to keep up on my ID’s and quality factors. I was doing well. My friends even asked me to go with them to help them study. I had a 95% going into the final. I spent the night before going over all the info with my friends for hours. I don’t know what happened. Apparently I didn’t know the information as well as I should have. The final was made up of 20 practical questions. Some were just straight identifications, where all we had to do was write the name of the product. However, most of the time we had to name the product and then answer several questions about it as well, like naming quality and condition factors, storage temperatures, varieties, where it came from, etc. If you miss one part of the multiple part question, you miss the whole point. And in this class, one point on a test or quiz is one percentage point of the final grade. I’m pretty sure I failed the final. It was very very hard. However, even if I miss all 20 points, I’ll still have a 75% in the class, which should let me pass the class. This final was over two weeks ago. Our grades are still not posted. Take a guess how I feel about that….

I then went home for two weeks for Christmas and the New Year. I had an absolutely fantastic time. It’s always hard leaving friends and family back in Indy, but it’s nice to be back in school. Meat Fabrication and Identification is the next seven class days, and Fish and Seafood Fabrication and Identification is the seven days after that. Meats class starts tomorrow. I’ll keep you all updated.