Basically I feel like a complete screw-up and I wonder what the hell I'm doing in grad school. (Commence whining.)
I spent a painful amount of time making this whole fake cookie political book project (there will be photos and an explanation later), and then it's like.... she'll just give me a check anyway.
I have this obsessive need to do well at things and get A's in all my classes, and I have a really bad feeling I will end up with a B in this class. To top it off, I don't even enjoy it, and most days I leave feeling completely discouraged and demoralized. Oh also? All the work I'm putting into projects that get a very "meh" response is time I should have been spending painting, reading, researching, or working on all the other things I'm very behind in.
That brings me to tomorrow's midterm. Somehow I am able to remember every trivial fact about all three seasons of Project Runway and can quote minute nuances of language from poetry I read ten years ago, but for the life of me, I can't remember who painted what when. Ironically, I am in charge of maintaining a (very bad and error-riddled) website with all of the course images - I could (and should) have been reviewing this stuff all along, but noooo, I wait until the day before to realize that, "Hey, I don't know any of the dates foranything." Oh except it's all 17th century, so I've got that going for me.
The survey professor whom I assist drove home the importance of knowing the facts to his students after many of them did poorly with dates on their recent quiz (which, yeah, that was interesting). He said it is akin to attempting to have a political discussion without knowing any of the names or dates or events you're talking about - you'll end up saying, "Oh you know, it's that guy in Washington, a little bit ago, with the thing and the stuff."
(Or if you want to go the Simpsons route, "Those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns." "How does it keep up with the news like that?!")
Incidentally, I mostly don't have political (or any) conversations unless the other person is willing to fill in all the you-knows and whathisfaces for me or just pretend they know what I'm talking about.
I feel like a moron because in the beginning of the semester, one of my professors gave us the syllabus with all of our reading assignments (umm as they all do), with a complete list of all the books (it's a frightening amount), and I completely forgot to make any arrangments to procure any of these books ahead of time after the first week was a lot of photocopying. Usually it works out that I drop twenty bucks copying all this stuff each week or scramble around trying to find a copy of a book if we need to read the whole thing, leave myself without enough time to comprehensively read (I'd call it a smart skim at best), and grumble that I'm stupid, ill-prepared, lazy, and [insert pejorative of choice - I usually like to throw in "fat" for good measure.]
This week, I can't even find a place that will sell the book in the tri-state area. Which means that I will be photocopying a 225-page book (which will cost approximately $22.50 if I don't make any mistakes) which is available on Amazon for $1.88 and lower.... or $1.26 for the hardcover with plates. How hard can I kick myself? For real.
I could get the book from the NYPL - and I can see it's available. EXCEPT I have put off getting a library card since, oh, last August or thereabouts (actually I've been meaning to get one since before starting school), so it will become a much lengthier ordeal than simply strolling in and getting the stupid book. If I had a library card, I wouldn't even have to go to the library because it's available on JSTOR online. Which my school doesn't have access to, but the NYPL does. Damnit.
But I'm putting off the book thing until tomorrow since I have all this reading to catch up on in preparation for the exam. And somehow I plan to fit a couple hundred paintings into my frazzled little brain before 9am tomorrow.
Is now an appropriate time to say that if there were no books, my world would be a much simpler place? If all writing were available free online and I didn't have to make artist's books for this class, I think... I think maybe I wouldn't feel so panicky and angry right now.
Oh also, I can't paint, and I don't know why the hell I try. Like seriously, this is a farce. We have open studios this Friday and the thought of people walking into my studio and looking at all my stuff in comparison with the rest of the MFA program is making me quake with terror. At the last one of these, I closed my studio and left after less than an hour because I just couldn't stand it. I have no idea how I'm going to deal with this one (especially since I really need to go shopping for a dress for a wedding this weekend instead of standing around feeling bad about my art and the first available time I'll have to do that is... Friday night). My plan is to have a huge bowl of candy corn on the table and sit on my couch smiling dumbly. Then no matter what an awful stuttering hack I reveal myself to be, they can't be too disparaging because hey, I was nice and gave them candy corn.
And that art history thing isn't really working out either - I'm terrible at research (see the library card extravaganza - I can't even get in the door), I don't know how to manage my time, I'm shallow and stupid and mostly, I just don't know what I'm doing. How I'm going to put together a thesis or in any way present intelligent ideas or (Good Lord) get a job doing this, I cannot possibly say right now.
Does anyone know of a postgraduate program in knitting and photographing one's cats? Because umm, I'm afraid that's really all I'm good for lately.
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