Waiting... (Final Version)

My heart is speeding up. Sweat slowly runs down my forehead. The worry that I feel is overwhelming. Through the eyes of another, I would appear fine. I'm not in the middle of a hectic battle or sliding off the road after taking a corner too quickly. I'm standing at the instructor's podium, waiting for him to give me my graded assignments from the four week long Intro to Semiconductor Manufacturing class that ended last Wednesday.

What if I didn't do well on the assignments? Maybe I ended up with a D in the class. Even worse, what if I failed? The money I spent on tuition and gas would be wasted. The hours spent driving and sitting in class wouldn't have been of much use. I probably didn't learn enough to make it worthwhile. There's no way I could breeze through the class on my second try if I did so badly the first time. What about classes that require this one as a prerequisite? That includes a significant portion of the Microelectronics Technology classes. These classes aren't offered every term. I may have to alter the entire course of my degree.

No matter my level of confidence, I can never shake the feeling that I'm going to see disastrous results in any class. Quizzes, tests, and exams rarely fail to feel much more difficult than the rest of the work, even when the questions are exactly the same. The instructor found the first of my three assignments. I missed a couple points. I can endure this loss. The second assignment came and I only lost one point. There was no way to fail the class now. But the journal was what I was least sure about. The guidelines were vague, even after asking the instructor about them.

"Your journal is not here."

I don't think the way I felt after hearing this was as strong as it should have been. A third of my grade was on the line.

"Oh, here it is."

That was a relief. And my journal received full points. It turned out to be the easiest assignment in the class. All of the anguish and despair was for nothing. Everything went much better than I had expected. Now I need to keep that up for the next two classes in the series.