Smart

So I had my bad decision for the week on Monday of freaking out about a 3 page paper I shouldn't have been freaking out about at all and basically napping all day. Right through my history class and the beginning of my English class. Was not my finest moment but that's ok! Onward I go to not making another mistake for the rest of this week!
So I almost made a mistake today by waiting to the last minute to do an assignment. Really, it wasn't waiting to the last minute to do the assignment but waiting to the last minute to read my teacher's comments on my last assignment which directly affected how I should have been doing the assignment due today. Basically I got a 79 because I didn't "have enough secondary sources for an initial bibliography" and my thesis was terrible. Okay, I knew I needed more secondary sources eventually and that my thesis was terrible but it was the best I could come up with at the moment. I mean, it's an initial bibliography. You're going to drop me down two letter grades for that?? Seriously?!
So I didn't have enough time to come up with another secondary source that I could quickly annotate so I just annotated the ones I had the best I could and talked about two more primary sources I found. So I'm running to the library figuring, for sure he's going to give me a terrible grade for not having another secondary source but whatever and I'm trying to quickly print it out when I happen to be next to a guy in my class who also happens to be running late. I see his annotated bibliography and gasp! He's got a thesis statement too! He assures me it was required and tells me to just write one quickly since I'm already late. I do, and keep in mind his issues with my thesis before. I mean, it turned out alright considering I wrote it in a couple seconds. Anyway, as I was leaving I caught another student from my class just printing out his bibliography too.
So I run to class, we have class, and at the end he starts talking about the paper we had due the last week.
Basically, we all failed. Apparently (and I still don't believe this) only three people in our class of ten cited quotes and paraphrasing. This is a 400 level class. I don't understand how this is even possible. How could you survive the other history classes without being called out for plagiarism and fail? How could more than half the class do that?! I actually started wondering if I was one of those people even though I knew I cite almost everything in my papers just because of the odds against me. Then he said it was obvious that most students didn't understand the text, which I didn't. He goes on and how, like, only one person talked about Practical Realism which was a huge part of the chapter (I did...) and then about Truth and Objectivity, which the whole chapter was about (this was definitely my whole paper). So now I'm kinda like.... I think he just expected more because I did all of that.... I think. And then he finishes with "They really weren't that bad."
Can you even say that after saying most of us plagiarized?
I get it back and I got a 70. I'm just like "Ok, what the heck did I do" and I go through my paper which has next to no marks on it throughout but a big paragraph of comments at the end. The guy has probably the worst handwriting I've ever seen so I'm going through trying to pick out words. So far his comments have been pretty positive but this one ends with "This is not complete" which isn't a good start. I seriously can't figure the message out so I decide to ask him to read it for me so I can figure out what I didn't do.

It read: "This is great as far as it goes but given that it is only half as long as the assignment required and that many issues are either not discussed or just mentioned in passing, it is more suggestive than complete. Indeed, it is not complete."
I had forgotten that I had only written two pages when the paper was supposed to be four... but still I cannot express to you the shock I felt when he said "great" and I remembered I got a 70. He went on and said "You know this is really good, I mean this is obviously the work of an intelligent person"
And that's about the second I stopped hating him. Can I tell you a secret? I don't think I've ever been told I was smart. I always kinda knew because I could remember things others couldn't, especially concerning history, but to be told by... anyone that you possess intellect, that you are indeed not just average but smart, is a feeling I find difficult to describe. The best I can do is to tell you I stopped disliking his attitude and subjective grading and walked away unable to stop smiling and tearing up.
I was smart. It was official. It was not just a thought in my head but I was, indeed, smart. I felt like every moment of self-doubt, self-loathing, self-scrutinizing and comparing myself to others that other people around said were smart just kinda fell to the wayside and I thought "I'm one of them. I'm smart too."
And then I thought isn't that sad? That such a declaration at my age could have such an effect on me?