Day from Hell and after...

So yesterday was truly a day from Hell. I had a major assignment due, and while working on it I hopped onto my Courseweb to check the grades for my class. Lo and behold I discovered that I had failed my last major assignment (worth 20% of my grade) because of Google Adsense ads all over the website I had submitted for review as part of the assignment.

Needless to say, I felt sick. I've gotten bad grades in the past, but always because of my own laziness. I've NEVER gotten a poor grade on an assignment which I put effort into completing, and I saw no ads at all on this site. Not to mention, 20% is a HUGE chunk of grade to lose out on. So I went back to the site and still no ads that I could see anywhere. I took screen caps, sent them to the professor, and challenged the grade. She in turn sent me a screen cap of the way she saw it (and yeah, it was brutally ugly with ads) but conceded that it was clear I saw a completely different site than she did, and is allowing me to resubmit the assignment with a more appropriate web page. I can only surmise that there must have been an ad block plugin installed on the computer that I used to complete the assignment, of which I was unaware (or knowing how important the "for/non profit" deal was, I would've disabled it). But thank God, I am allowed to resubmit. That's a huge relief, and I'm already scoping out an alternate site to use.

However, despite the relief, I'm now utterly paranoid about every grade in both classes. I was terrified to submit the assignment that was due yesterday, because what if I make another error that causes her to fail it? I went over the requirements a dozen times (or it felt like it), but I did that on the one I failed as well.

So I was still dealing with lingering stress from that all day yesterday, even after I got the news that I was permitted to resubmit. Then, late yesterday afternoon I found out that a doctoral student in one of the labs had complained behind my back to my boss about an order that didn't go through properly. She all but accused me of blowing off her orders. Fortunately, a co-worker who got a phone call about this informed me, so I took it right back to the source and addressed the issue directly, outlining exactly what had happened every step of the way. I cannot address breakdowns on the supplier end--especially if I have not been contacted about said breakdowns existing. I also don't appreciate someone trying to end-around me in a case like this which could've easily been resolved by a simple direct contact.

The student's faculty mentor suggested via the e-mail chain that we sit down to meet and hash out where communication broke down. I immediately responded that I would be more than happy to do so and offered my availability.

I nearly didn't go to my usual Thursday hangout with friends last night because I was in such frazzled and poor spirits. In the end, however, I completed my assignment, went over it as many times as I could, and submitted. I then decided that sitting at home and being stressed wasn't going to do me any good, and seeing some friends would be a good temporary prescription for the tension. And it was.

I passed out at about 11:30 last night, and woke up stiff and tense at 5:30 AM (a half hour before I normally get up). The last thing I wanted was to come back here after yesterday. But I rolled out of bed, got showered and dressed, and made my way downstairs. Then something happened.

I looked out the window, and the sunrise was beautiful. And then something on television made Julie laugh uproariously. It may sound cheesy, but I don't care: Julie's laugh is the most beautiful sound in the world to me. So as I looked at the sunrise and listened to my wife laugh (which made me chuckle as well), I thought about Sophia, and things were a little bit better. Sometimes you need to realize that a really crappy day might even set up more crappy days down the road, but after and in between there are always other days that, well, aren't so crappy. And they may even be good days.

Today has been pretty steady at work, but I don't have anything backed up on my desk and so far no new major stresses have cropped up. Also, the student in question has yet to respond to the e-mail discussion (at least, not in such a way as would include me) and to my knowledge has not forwarded her availability for a meeting.

Overall, so far so good...as long as I don't fail anymore assignments.