The Mystery of the Black Floppy Disk

It was my first semester at college and I had no idea what to expect out of my classes or professors. One thing I know is that this will be different, and I am not sure how prepared I am.

I didn't begin my education at ISU, instead I attended a Junior College to get my general courses out of the way. My first semester I decided to take English with a professor who I heard was very good from other classmates that had already taken her English 101 course. I would like to tell you her name, but choose not to for various reasons and because other than the short traumatic story I am about to tell you, this woman was a good teacher…for the most part.

It was mid-semester. We were beginning our final projects - an eight to ten page paper to include in our portfolios - in this English class. Everything up to this point was running smoothly, and I currently held an A in the course. I had been working on my project very hard to make it exceptional. There was only one piece of the puzzle over which I had no control. My teacher insisted on collecting our disks after every class. One would think the disk would come home with me but it did not. We gave her our disks after every class for safekeeping in a small box that sat in her right bottom desk drawer. See, Mrs. "I-will-keep-it-safe" thought this was in the best interest of every student because stereotypically college students are irresponsible (an offensive stereotype).

Soon it was the week our project was due. As usual we all met in room 114, the community college computer lab. There was a large table in the middle of the room where my professor sat in case we needed help, and next to her was the small clear box that all of our disks were kept in. On this particular day, I noticed my disk wasn't in the box. I took hold of the box, looking at the last disk that was in there knowing it wasn't mine, but I stared at it longingly hoping that I could magically turn it into mine. No luck.

"Do you know where my disk is?" I asked Dr. "Don't-know" politely.

"Is it not in the box?"

"No, it's not." Why would I ask if it were; I thought to myself?"

"Well let me go check my office, I am sure it is there."

My professor went and checked and returned empty handed. How is it that out of 22 students, my disk is the only one that gets lost? Out of everything that could go wrong this is the last thing I would expect. Now I had to go back and rewrite what I could remember of that paper. I went home that day and dug out my first draft, which was very rough, and only about four pages long but it would have to do or at least help a little. My final paper was not anywhere near what it could have been or where I wanted to be.

Dr. "Lost-it" said she felt horrible, rightfully so, but I couldn't shirk all responsibility as I could have easily made a back-up copy for myself. The professor wanted us to bring our ideas to class only work on the project during course time. The teacher ended up adding 10 points to my grade and I did get the A, but not without having to rewrite much of my work. I just don't understand how it was so easy for her to carry the attitude of oh well, you will just have to redo it!

I do have an update as to what happened to that mystery disk though. It was the last couple of months at my Junior college when I passed my old professor in the hall. We stopped and chatted for a moment when I thought it would be funny to ask her if she ever came across my disk. It turns out that she happened to be moving offices and found it while going through her piles. She did apologize again and asked if I would like to have it back. All of the memories came back to me and I couldn't help being bitter with the loss of my hard work. The stubbornness in me came out and I decided to reject the offer. After walking away though I wish I would have gotten the disk back so that I could use some of those ideas for other papers possibly.

Overall two mistakes were made, I didn't keep an extra floppy and I never got my hard work back on disk because my pride got in the way. What an experience and a lesson learned.