The concept of A, still rates as being the ideal and is ingrained in the mindset of people due to the marking system they have grew up with. The concept however can be stifling, and having a tightened mindset around the idea of the A can result in too high expectations which might leave you with nothing as opposed to something. If I proceed with high expectations, then I am not always being realistic as to relatively small windows of opportunity that I need to act in concert with if I am going to have any results whatsoever. What happens is we drape over the letter grades into still forming situations that have nothing or little to do with being tested yet and look for the idyllic A situation when the material involved hasn't been traversed at all yet. It is like reading page 1 in a book and then looking to grade it. Probably in an academic setting, the search for the A at times might be too cumbersome, and can result in reading the teacher and trying to first off give back what the teacher wants to hear and this will more likely warrant the A nas there are often subjective aspects to the grading system, and the teacher holds the cards on that. There is some wisdom in this policy of being amiable towards the teacher and reading into what is going to please the teacher, but exploration into your own world of ideas is hampered in this process of giving the most pleasing say term paper, rather than what to you would be the most challenging and explorative approach. There are still seemingly less than situations that can warrant an A for what you are getting out of i in terms of exploration. If I have never explored this territory or this information, and it is arrising as new and useful information, then I am certainly ahead of where I was and this is an A. You can't always just wrap a clothe around what you have had precisely in mind as to what is constituting the A, and in fact you might be getting A type experiences that you are figuring for a B but if you progress further, you will find the A. . You can get A like information from say a given documentary, a certain book, something you hear on the radio, etc. but you think that this information needs to be neatly found in the auspices of the formal course at a university, because lately education has been overtly lauded and where you went to school is almost like wearing a designer watch for people. When J.K. Rolling started the Harry Potter series, which ultimately resulted in stampedes to the book stores with each new release in the series, did she think she was out to write an A product? She started the initial writings on napkins, in the coffee shop and that is not exactly an A trailing into an A. She was creating imaginary characters in an imagined setting so there was no comparable reference for this exact characters and this exact setting for these characters. When the road is that uncertain and that unexplored, at times you want to pick up the pieces of your A, and then it can all add in, as you discard or ignore the C's this time, if your sure it is a C. If you are uncertain, you can retain in temporarily and then discard it as it reveals a true C. But it is hard to knit an A all the way through, but you can still get fraction of an A, and then piece them together. For example, a few paragraphs of an attempted writing at a short story, could warrant an A right there and then and you want to hold on to those paragraphs, even if you haven't gotten the full short story down yet. You might wonder if putting the idea of the A up front for a whole project, for a nascent idea, for a work in progress novel or short story, is the best way to approach the idea of trying to create a story. What you really want, is some part of an A, and that makes the overall A more of a real possibility. If I am hitting the ski slopes for the first time ever, do I try to see if I am going to be an A skier? The idea might be more around finding some initial competence with being able to ski and some fondness for the setting of the ski slope. At the same time, maybe it is good to keep the A, B, or C idea roughly in mind with a positive view. And that postive view says that the C territory isn't always your fault. If you are involved in experiences that are a C, it might have little or anything to do with your imput as to how this situation has become a C. If you are involved with, and within C range stuff, you don't have to take it home with you as your fault, when it might not be your fault at all, or you may have very little fault as to this being a C. This is because people might be overly picky or fussy even within great situations. If I am sitting on the coast of Naples, in mint weather and scenery, it is an A, even if the service at the bar and grille is a bit slow, I am in A range territory. The slow service in no way mitigates the actual A, so it is good maybe to use the idea of spotting the A, and appreciating the A when and where you find the A, rather than further searching for the A+. It might be worth stopping for and enjoying the simple A situation that you cannot quite place as being A+ in your through the roof expections. If I am reading a book, and there are a few slow or less interesting pages, it still could be mint book overall and I can keep the A intact on that despite a few less than thrilling pages. I don't need to mark down situations for relatively minor downs in the ups and downs. And that is another mistake in using the letter grade system, and that is anticipating and looking for the mark down, a process that becomes to subjective where you are trying to find fault where this is very fault. In this scenario, the C becomes a self fullfilling prophecy. It is not that you are a liberal marker, but your standards for keeping the A are to stringent, as you are a non believer of sorts in the A and its existence as a possibility. There might be a few B or B+ situations where there is still a lot going on, still some, or even many favorable elements. With the actual C situation, you can still get some good out of it. But at the same time, if the C is a chronic situation, then it is good to see it for what it really is, name it as a C as it is never really showing A parts, and look to move to greener pastures, as there really are potentially better situations out there that relate to the higher grade of A. An example might be a job situation, that really is, in terms of the work day, the people at the place, a C situation. This might be concluded after too many work days that were a C, and almost no work days that ever made it to A territory. With this, you are incurring too much mediocrity, for the long haul, as the C situation is simply not good enough to be immersed in this as the long term job, even though the steady paycheck is important, in the open system out there, there are going to be other better possibilities, and you are settling for less than for sure. From the C in small situations, maybe just try to advance to the B. If your diet isn’t that great, and really rates a C, try to make changes that will at least improve it to a B, as the jump to an A might not be easy enough to start with. If someone goes on a date, and really wants a blond haired person, and who they are meeting turns out not be that, there is no reason to eliminate the idea up from that this cannot be an A date. There might be other overriding factors that can easily make this date an A, despite the absence of authentic blond hair. A lot of other things besides hair color can factor in to supporting an A situation. You can get something all along the continuum of A, B, or C, with the idea of not being super strict about what really does constitute an A, and not be overly dismissive about real possibilities found in the B and the B+ range, even if it isn’t quite what you had in mind initially, have an open mind to the B and B+. You can deal with the C, but don’t latch onto the C, and do see the C as being a C, and containing too much mediocrity to make a huge long term investment in. And don’t initiate a letter grade to something you are just trying out, even if it is a C, you need practice in handling C situations to be multifaceted and the expecation of always wanting A, can result in not taking chances and taking a risk where you might find a A or you might find a C. The challenge is more so not to find the A up front, but to proceed without the A and risk the C for the B or A possibilities. Because if I want to forgo the risk of a C, I might actually miss B's and A's, Even say not taking a subject for fear of the C, is a form of this, maybe you could learn something and in fact maybe you could get an A, but you are not going to find that out, because of the fear of the C taking hold and being so strong in your thinking that you allow it to cause you to stay away. You can also get rid of the whole grid, if you want, and just go pass fail, especially if it is a more creative pursuit.
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