no regrets, no consolation

i received back ca grades for one of my classes a couple of days ago, and though they were not exactly spectacular, i can't say i was expecting anything more than what i got actually. So, semi-irrational worries over how this may help to pull me down to the next class aside; i'm pretty at peace with what i ended up getting, and guess am a biiiit extra motivated for the final to put in much more effort into the class than my (inherently lacking) interest in the subject would require.

what i'm sorta annoyed about is the class participation grade, not because i didn't deserve it (cos i so did), but more because i don't see how i could have gone about things in such a way as to get anything higher than the B- that i got. Basically class participation for this particular class equals to asking question s at the end of each person's presentations. My beef is that i honestly believe that my brain generally processes info at a slower rate than many others in my class - so what happens is that once each presentation ends hands tend to shoot up all over the class in order to ask questions - and not once has one of those hands belonged to me, simply because in such a short time frame, i normally am still processing what has just been presented, and therefore i'm not able to ask anything that would not make me out as a total doofus (e.g. - "uh, i don't quite understand your presentation - can you repeat it again please?"). and basically, the time allocated for the questions tends to zoom by with intelligent question after intelligent question being asked, and once the question time ends (rather abruptly, due to time constraints), i'm left still grasping at random straws with which i can ask questions with...

so this has gone on for pretty much the whole semester, and before i knew it, and after two token questions that by God's grace have come out of my mouth, that's the end of my chances for this 15%. Doesn't help that the other 45% ca component is far less than stellar (even trash like the Hyundai Stellar) as well. And that i feel somewhat helpless where this participation grade is since i dunno how things could have gone differently, and in any case i do so hate asking questions/ commenting just for the sake of it, and without any constructive purpose being served for the person whose presentation i'm responding to (not that i'm insinuating that anyone else in my class did so, of course - they have the same purposes in mind, they just think far faster than i ever could)... One feels like such a loser at times like these - ah crap.