Perspective

I complain a lot. I know this, and I try to stop myself when I hear myself start, but a lot of the time I fail. For one thing, it's hard to see that line between useful, socially acceptable venting about a legitimate problem and beating the shit out of an annoying yet inescapably dead packhorse. I fail a lot. And I fail more when I'm stressed.

You see, Slade's response to overwork is to look at the length and complexity of her to-do list, freak the fuck out, tell everyone she sees about her to-do list and how it's freaking her out, and then go read Boing Boing for two hours while pretending said to-do list has ceased to inhabit the same plane of existence she does.*

Some of you may remember the last time I blogged while the third stage of this cycle.

Everything I said in that post is still relevant. It's just me that's changed. Because you know what I realized today?

I'm done with Core. If I haven't failed the class, I am finished with the entire Honors College track.

Finished as in done. Done as in through with. Never again. Gone. By the wayside. Completed, finite, nothing, the end. That's it. No more of wanting to shoot myself in the face during in-class discussion with people who militantly misread all the major points of the chapter. No tri- or quarto-weekly** journals full of high school-style regurgitation of the reading. No Thesis, as in no all-nighter to finish a paper you know is shit in which you're supposed to answer one of the Big Unanswerable Questions of Life that all the profs acknowledge are unanswerable. And best of all, No More Consensus, Ever, Ever, Ever Again. No more am I stuck in a room with 20 other students forced to agree on one, unified, coherent, practically applicable answer to Those Same Unanswerable Fucking Questions. How do we understand art? Suck me. How do we tell the good from the bad? Get the hell out of my life. Must the need for social order conflict with individual liberty? Yes, full stop.

I love the HC; it's been a second home for all my three years here. Some--hell, most--of my best college friends are in it. We have great times, we laugh, it's been a great ride. But there comes a time when you've taken the same class eight times in rapid succession when you are just so fucking glad to be done with that shit. As of this semester, if I haven't flunked Science Core, I'll have completed all my HC requirements, including Senior Synthesis. It's a rush. I can't really believe I've come that far, that (1) not only is there a light at the end of the tunnel, but (2) it is not an oncoming train and (3) I have reached it somehow without even noticing. It's a pretty great feeling.

I just wanted to share that moment with you, the one that's about how close I am to the finish line and everything I've done to get here, instead of all the stupid shit I have to do before I can cross it. Tomorrow there will be dress shopping, and then that will (hopefully) be done too. I like this "all things will pass" thing. It's neat.***


*And occasionally, when you're very good and put away all your toys right away, she blogs about it. Highly productive.

**Now I'm making up words.

***I thought about finishing this post with a notice of my discovery that I can continue to have casual, mature, friendly conversation with someone who rejected me on the dating front due to a prior engagement--the kind that comes with kneeling and diamonds--but then decided against it because I couldn't make "prior engagement" sound less stuck-up. Sorry.

Long post about academic disaster and emotional draining

I like the way this man's brain works.

And now I have to complain and freak the fuck out, so if you're in a good mood, skip to the next blog on your flist.

I hate this goddamn semester. I know that every semester I say that, and I also say "This project/class is kicking my ass" and it's always true. College is not my thing. I hate classes, I hate stupid busywork, I hate giant-ass research projects that make or break your grade, I hate grades, and I hate the institutionalized boredom wrapped up in overwork that so clearly defines School. I have loathed school since the third grade, if not before. This is not where I ever want to find myself again in my life. If Albus Dumbledore (RIP) walked through my front door and told me I was to enroll in Hogwarts for the next seven years because I'm magic, I'd be hard pressed not to rip this throat out with my teeth.*

And this semester is in fact worse than most. I have not dropped out of college, which is good, but I'm running GPA numbers and grade percentages a lot more than normal, trying to see just how badly I can afford to do in my classes, and it's not looking good. Usually there's one class that I just can't manage, and a couple of weeks where I honestly cannot complete all the assigned work -- but now it's all my classes I can't handle and all my weeks I'm dropping necessary things to do other necessary things. And too many of those "necessary things" are along the lines of "get drunk with roommates and watch CoS in Spanish because I can't even face the tonnage of work that is even now toppling over on top of me and dear God I want to have something in this semester that I can say I enjoyed."** I have barely hung out with my Whit friends (which is, sadly, not unusual; another thing I hate about school).

Tomorrow I have to meet with my Seminar prof to explain to her that I've scarcely gotten beyond background research on the paper that makes up 75% of my grade, and then beg her for either a topic change or an incomplete, neither of which is all that good with three-and-a-half weeks left to pull this bastard together and then a summer full of not-school.

It's bad, kids. Even my drop-out semester was better than this. I'm taking my two senior-level classes, plus Science Core (and Arabic). I'm madly planning for leaving the country twice this year and scrounging money to make that possible (ie. grant proposals). My Jordan paperwork and Gilman scholarship packet are due the 3rd, and thank almighty fucking powers that be that I have profs who like me enough to do recommendations on that short of notice. My thesis is due halfway through the unit, on the 9th (final due the 15th), instead of at the very end of the semester as per usual. My Seminar paper is due the 18th, also obscenely early for a term paper. After that, there's a paper on serial killers due the 27th, presenting my Seminar paper sometime that same week, and a presentation on Angela Carter, none of which I've even started dealing with. I have no finals (except Arabic, which will not be graded by Motasim and hence is going to be hell), only papers and presentations. I'm drowning in work. I have no idea how to get any of it done, let alone all of it, and don't even talk to me about turning in quality. Last year I thought I had a shot at graduating Summa Cum Laude (3.75 GPA); now I'll be glad to get Magna (3.50) -- and that's including a semester abroad in which grades don't transfer (THANK GOD).

Can I even explain to you how very, very fucked I am academically and emotionally right now? Spring is popping out all over even in Fuckin' Indiana, and it is not making it better. A bit happier, but my SAD-addled brain is not soaring in delight as if usually does this time of year. I want the semester to be over now so that I can forget it ever happened and move on to things I like, things I love, things that make me happy and that I'm passionate about. There's a part of me that really doesn't fucking care that I've already sunk three years and loads of money into this bullshit and that I only have one semester left next year on this campus; it just wants out. The people who tell you these are the best years of your life are fucked in the head.

*Now, personal tutoring on the side would be fine for something as awesome as magic. But no school. No classes, no bells, no term papers, none of this fucking bullshit. Besides, that means Voldie is real, and if that is true then I had better learn magic, sharp-shooting, and wilderness survival pretty damn fast.

**I AM NOT A DRUNK YET GODDAMMIT.

Unearthly Squeaking

There is an unending squeaking coming from something near the Leonard Hall computer lab, where I currently am. It sounds like a very, very large metal hamster wheel turning lazily, as if propelled by a very, very large and very, very lazy hamster. It has been squeaking for the last two hours, without pause.

This is me right now:
o.O;;;

If my gnawed remains are found in the Oak Grove tomorrow, then I request that my memory be honored with a B-grade SF slasher movie about giant, radioactive rodents with a taste for human flesh.

Back at college

Been meaning to make a back-to-college post all week. And, Jesus, it's been a week.

My roommates who have been dating since they were freshmen have been dealing with some relationship issues. They're doing a lot of time apart and a lot of getting smashed -- each separately but at the same time, which is bizarre. Monday was "hey, if we get all our shit done in half an hour, then we could watch 10 Things I Hate About You and get trashed!" night. So I've now been properly trashed and sick afterward. Ew.

Wednesday was an Irish session at the house: boozed-up musicians playing reels on flutes and whistles. Looks like tradition in the making; Audrey and Jess have no classes on Thursday. (Jerks.)

Have discovered that I still have time to turn in my Enhancement Fund proposal (think money, lots of money) but only a month till the NSEP is due -- and I haven't asked for recommendations yet. Eek.

I still fucking hate college. That hasn't changed.

I'm going to do my Capstone History Dept. Major Research Paper on pirates. I may present a paper on zombies to the IUP Undergraduate Conference (but probably not).

But you know what's really killing me? NOT FUCKING KNOWING ANYTHING. I will not know until April whether I have any Enhancement money. I will not know until March whether my current scholarships transfer abroad. I will not know until early May whether I have an NSEP award.

AND I WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL FUCKING MAY WHETHER I'M EVEN ACCEPTED AT EGYPT!

My brain is full of possibilities of what I could do with a semester off if Egypt falls through (and it seriously may). They still involve fleeing the country. (One involves working my way through the Caribbean on boats.) Some of them involve mucking about in Pittsburgh. But there are no plans I can make. O.o

So...there we are. I hate my life a little right now. I hope pirates will make it better. Chocolate, coffee, and booze only go so far.

New Year's Eve

Usually Christmas and New Year's get me all sentimental and thinking back over the year and what I've accomplished and what I still have to do, and then I need lots of chocolate to cheer myself up again.

Or, I could go to a party, drive home as the first dawn of the new year breaks over yonder notch in the treeline, and skip the self-assessment altogether.

You see, the depressing thing about end-of-year summaries is that they're never enough. Last year I went to China; this year I spent three months on a couch watching Buffy and hating my life. College is just more school that makes me want to stab myself in the face rather than get up in the morning. Writing papers eats up all my time. By midterms, all I want to do is sleep for a month, party with the friends I never see, write constantly, and buy a plane ticket to Somewhere Else. I may be learning some worthwhile things, but mainly I just want to get out.

Which brings us to Egypt, which is how I'm keeping myself sane. Ten months in Cairo with no affect on my GPA? What could be more marvelous? However, Egypt is $27,000 for the full year, not counting airfare or whatever I might do for Christmas break. I have no idea where that money is coming from and I desperately fear that the answer is "more loans." I am scared shitless of loans. I have no plans of maintaining the kind of lifestyle right out of college that can afford to pay back large amounts of loans. I've run into a brick wall I like to call "AUUUUHGHHHH! I HATE THIS FUCKING SHIT AND I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT DEALING WITH IMPOSSIBILITY!" and hence have done fuck-all towards applying for all the scholarships I had planned to deal with over break. I'm still recovering from last semester for Christ's sake. If I can't make Egypt happen, then I want to take a semester off. I can't keep this up.

I pulled a 4.0 out of my ass last semester (highest GPA ever) and I need to do it again starting in two weeks. Why? Because last year my stupid-ass self decided I should try to graduate Summa Cum Laude. Because I could, if I could get through the trauma.

I fucking hate school. It's a corrupt institution. The President of IUP, Tony Atwater, doesn't even try to hide the fact that he wants to use us, the students, as cash cows. The new dorms are swankier, but twice as expensive. The library catalogue dates from the 1970s. They want to demolish and rebuild Whitmyre Hall (which is fine and just got a new heating system), but Keith (built in the 1920s, heating system operated by a switch in Harrisburg, no I'm not kidding) has only gotten new carpeting and a few more (admittedly appreciated) computers. I refuse to be their cash cow; next year's tuition isn't even going to the same continent they're on.

Thus, in short (too late):
1. I hate college.
2. I hate scholarships.
3. I hate loans.
4. Therefore I'm dealing with scholarships now.
5. I'm getting the fuck out of the country next year if it kills me.
6. Which it may.