While I was in the office in Bennett Hall, I saw the director of the graduate program I want to enter. We talked, and she asked me if I met the requirements. And while I gave her my grades and classes passed (chemistry: B-, calculus I: A, physics I and II: Bs each, etc.), she observes that I'm just squeaking by. That's when she breaks the news to me that I need a 3.0 to become a TA. That's not good. Why? My current GPA is a 2.41. And even retaking classes and shooting for straight As this year won't assure me of that mark. Not by a long shot. If I don't get to TA, I don't go to grad school. There's no money. Pure and simple. Needless to say, I've never been more afraid of my future, and its uncertainty. I've never been more concerned about my grades, and about just how important those grades, something that I believe to be an artificial, unnecessary construct of academic society, really are. I hate grades. I think they have no place in academia, but that's strictly my opinion, and it has come to bite me in the ass. My advisor was sympathetic to my cause, it seemed, but he couldn't do anything for me but offer the good perspective. The worst-case scenario is my failure to gain admission to graduate school. Then what? Well, I graduated from here with a Bachelor's. That is an achievement in and of itself. How can I scoff at a $25,000 piece of paper? At that work? At that drive? And who says that there's no ambition left in me to go on to do something great without being called 'Doctor'? The answer is obviously 'no one'. I'll do what I need to do and what it takes to make it in this world. I'm not afraid of doing just that, but I'm now so far away from what I've finally found that I want (teaching college) that I feel like I'm once again at square one. And maybe I am. Michael (yes, that's my advisor) said that the best thing that happened to Steve Jobs was that he got fired from Apple. That the best thing that happened to Albert Einstein was scrounging around for jobs and happening to find one in a patent office. That the best thing that happened to Thomas Edison was his failure regarding marketing direct current in homes. From those vantage points, they developed their true drives. And I don't try to compare myself to those people, but I do compare situations. Will I live up to their caricatures, to the marks they left and still leave? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that my perspective has changed. My attitude has changed. Did I want it to? No, but it's a start, and somehow, it has given me new life, new hope, and new determination. But, if I fail, the only thing I want to do is show those people in the offices who decide who can teach their undergraduates who they denied.