As the Taijitu Spins

This is me talking about my week. Our Chem 60 class got our tests back this week, and I got one of the highest grades in the class. Apparently the high score was a 98%, and I got a 97%. Ooh, so close. It's a little baffling to me because this one lady, who sits in the front and answers every single in-class question wrong-- and I'm being almost completely serious here, it's uncanny-- apparently did well on the test. The prof also claimed that the lowest score, 45%, would be counted as a passing grade. Say wha? Well, it's not my class, but that does seem a tad over-generous.

Then I took my Soc 30 test, which was only 30 questions long. That seems like it might make the questions disproportionately weighted, point-wise. I'd make the test a bit longer, but again-- not my class.

Finally, today in Spch 60 we got the results back for our first exam. I personally found the test almost insultingly easy-- we were allowed to fill one side of an entire 5"x8" note card with as many notes as we liked, and I can write so small that I managed to fit the entire study guide on there with room to spare. Plus the questions were really obvious to anyone with any degree of deductive ability. Like for example, it was along the lines of:

"A boss who uses their position to force people to do things is:

A) Democratic
B) Authoritarian
C) Non-assertive
D) Collaborative"

But apparently this was enough to throw most of the class for a loop. There were 2 A's, 5 B's, 6 C's, 3 D's, and 7 F's. Which is actually a pretty appropriate spread, bell-curve-ly speaking. I was just kind of boggled that people could whiff so mightily on such a heavily-handicapped softball of a test. I mean, I wound up getting 102/100 and I didn't study at all, I just wrote shit on a note card. But the class is some weak-tea high school type stuff, anyhow. If not for the amusing backchat with some of my classmates, I'd be gritting my teeth just trying to sit through it.

Actually, that last leads me to something I've been thinking about, which is the idea of Challenge. I've been trying to expand my definition of Challenge ever since the summer. We all know that something can be challenging because it's hard, but I also realize now that something can be very challenging because it's very simple. It takes training and effort to run fast, but it also takes discipline and attention to run slow, to proceed at any kind of rate that isn't your choice. In other words, something can be so wispy and non-challenging that it actually becomes challenging to do it properly, and not just get bored and say "Ah, fuck it."

For instance: if your task was to, in one sitting, write the alphabet on every page of a spiral-bound notebook. You and I know you could do it-- there's nothing tricky about that. But to actually literally sit down and do it would take some effort. Easy, yet challenging. I find this compelling somehow. Discipline, focus, attention, intention.

From what I hear, this idea will be a central theme of David Foster Wallace's forthcoming and posthumous The Pale King, which I await with ravenous anticipation.