It looks pretty unceremonious, but it means the world to me: “20/100%” translates to, “I aced the first midterm I took in 21 years.”

Setting aside the fact that my professor is totally derelict in her responsibility to establish an effective and reasonable assessment model (pulling 20 questions from a test bank for a midterm worth 18% of the course grade ain’t it), this is a huge victory for me, for the following reasons:

1. Twenty-two years in academia has weirdly left me feeling like a know-nothing fraud and failure. My intellectual self-esteem is in the toilet.
2. I suffered a brain injury five years ago, which impacted my short-term memory and left me wondering–if I can’t remember who *you* are, what I said we should do about that thing we discussed five times, or why I walked into this room–whether I can still learn.
3. I am still good for something, even if it is just being an undergraduate.

Knowing that I can learn opens doors within and beyond my profession. The world just got bigger!