As some may have seen from facialbook and my lack of posts pimping out Jay DeMayo's Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar, I was once again forced to change some pretty big plans to do something fun and awesome that I wanted to do (in his case attend the 2016 CVASPS) in order to do what I believe I have to do (not commit academic sippukku) at the very last minute. The first time was back in early June when I learned halfway through my water cut that I would not be able to compete at US Strongman Nationals because I would not be able to make up the classes I would have missed which would have been detrimental to my ability to pass my Tests & Measures class. It is no fault of my teacher, it was just ignorance on my part and despite hating missing it for so very many reasons, I do believe that my teacher was correct.
This time I found out Thursday evening, literally the day before I was supposed to drive down to Richmond for the seminar, that due to the exceedingly low grades of the majority of my class on our Neuropathology midterm, were are being given an opportunity to retake it sometime this coming week that has yet to be officially announced. This is a class that historically causes a couple to several students each year to have to repeat the following year because of getting a D. This is also, to my knowledge, the only class for which this is an option due to scheduling and requirements for moving forward with the curriculum. So rather than curve the test or give the option of extra credit, we are being offered a retake that will average with our initial score to give a new (and hopefully higher) grade for the midterm. I should add at this point that the midterm is one of the only two grades in the class, the other obviously being the final exam. Also, our grading scale is slightly skewed with only a 5 point C range (75-79) since the grade needed to pass boards after graduating is a 75 and my school prides itself on having a 100% pass rate for many years in a row now. Oh, and also we apparently set a new low as a class for midterm grades since the offer of a retake is unprecedented as far as I am aware, going back several years at least.
To my knowledge, there were no As and only a scattering of low Bs followed by lots of Cs and Ds and most likely a few Fs. Since I do not know for certain when the make up will be and I do not want to have to repeat the class next summer or worse, fail out of school (an F=bye bye PT school) and I already have a couple of other time consuming assignments this weekend that I had planned out when and how I would complete them while still attending the seminar, I had to make the seriously awful decision not to go this year. There are a few questions on the test that may be tossed out or have credit given back which will boost my grade somewhat, but regardless of that I still feel that I must retake the exam, even if only to demonstrate that I do in fact sincerely care about my grade and I want to ensure the best possible outcome for myself and minimize my risk of wasting what is now years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars in my endeavor to become a doctor of physical therapy. So my new plan is not to schedule anything ever again during this summer semester since apparently that is the kiss of death. Thankfully my next comp (which sadly will actually be my first comp of the year) is not until after the end of the semester and while it may be poor timing depending on how badly final exams stress me out and jack up my diet, sleep, training, and everything else, I will be able at least to go and attempt to minimize how badly I suck.
This may seem like an obvious decision to you, and it was, but the temptation to think that I could somehow attend the seminar, get an online midterm done (which ended up being 9 pages when I had hoped to finish it in 3), go to socials both Friday and Saturday night with the presenters and attendees, put together a template for my Acute Care class, study neuropathology, and also find time to train either in Richmond or at Brute on the way back home was taunting me to go anyway. But the reality is there is not enough time and I would have ended up most likely not getting multiple of those things completed satisfactorily which could have had severe repercussions. That's all for now. Deck out.