Just another dumb blond

I have long strawberry blonde hair, I reason to my self. Maybe
that's why I'm never taken seriously. I laugh a lot and giggle, I'm a
happy cheerful person, maybe that's why after one look, just one look,
people dismiss me as an airhead. Never mind that I am an honour student
majoring in the toughest field offered by my college, the important
thing seems to be that I fill out my shirt pretty well. I guess it's
partly my fault, I have relied on my looks for getting me through some
problems. I couldn't help it, it was so flattering. You see when I was
in school I was never considered pretty so when I blossomed in high
school and guys started noticing me I was enjoying, and sometimes
abusing, the attention. But now it disgusts me. My physics professor,
while explaining a complicated law, looks straight at me and speaks
extra slow with exaggerated hand motions and endless examples, as if I
was brain dead. My Database professor, while handing back our graded
papers gave me back mine and written at the top of the page was a big,
red B. He looked very pleased and said, "very good, keep up the good
work", as if saying a B is pretty much the best you could ever do.
Being an A student myself, the B bugged me but my professor's reaction
killed me. A few months ago I went to check my grades after completely
chocking on my finals. My grade was a B+, which was to me a major
disappointment . "It's OK. You worked hard, this is what you deserve."
I comforted myself, trying to convince myself that my hard earned B+ is
that not bad compared to the A- I was expecting. Just then I saw my
professor, he smiled at me and asked me into his office. Once inside,
he closed his office doors on us and once in the privacy of his office
I began to grow uncomfortable. He handed me a piece of paper and asked
me to look at it. Printed in blank ink were the forty names of the
students who took his course including mine which was always the last
on the list since my last name is a complicated array of Zs and Ls. The
paper was an accumulation of all the grades we had received for all the
papers and midterms over the course of the semester and in the last
slot was a calculation of the final grade. I checked my grades, they
were all accurate, they were all there but when I saw the letter in the
last slot I froze up. My actual grade was not a B+ but a B-. I looked
at my professor who looked pleased and told me "I just wanted you to
know how generous I was with you". He smiled and waited for me thank
him but my disgust and disappointment made me lost for words. I didn't
even earn a B+ I had earned a B- and some other girl had probably also
earned a B- but hers didn't get raised to a B+ since she didn't have
big breasts. I wanted to scream at my professor who stood there in the
privacy of his office with no shame and told me, "I'll break the rules
for you, you're pretty enough. Your cleavage has earned you a B+". I
felt sick. I didn't do that though. I didn't scream at him, I didn't do
the right thing, instead I took my B+ and thanked him for his
"generosity". Now I cut my long blond hair and dyed it black only to
discover that it doesn't make that much of a difference.