Finals

I remember the day I realized that finals were a scary thing. I was a sophomore in high school and I had just bombed a chemistry test. But was I concerned? No. I knew that the next night Becca and Tori would help me with my homework, which I would ace because of their brains, and after a few more assignments like that my grade would be just fine.

I made it through the semester that way, and ended up with an A in the class. Ah, high school.

This was around the time that my dear friend Rachel was finishing up a semester at BYU, and was stressing about her finals. I thought about that word, final, and realized how incriminating it was. Final, last, ultimate, absolute, binding, unchangeable.

If you failed a final, there was no going back. There was no homework assignment the next day to bring your grade up, there was no ray of hope shining through to make your bad grade ok.

This thought, this realization, has caused the term "finals" to become interchangeable in my mind with words such as stress, cruel, punishment, and death.

So this morning as I began studying for one such final, I did what every college student is wont to do. I opened up blackboard and grade book and started figuring out what grades I needed to get on my tests to get an A in my classes.

Gradebook has this handy little tool called the "what-if calculator." When you open it up you and go in and write in an imaginary score, and the calculator will proceed to tell you what your overall grade would be were you to get that score.

Here is what it told me for my marriage and family class:

This would be my grade if I got a 10% on my final

And this would be my grade if I got a 60% on my final.

Moral of the story? In order to get an 'A' in this class, I must only get a 60% on the final.

Stress = gone.