M: Fucking and faking

Man, I have had a week. I've been contemplating everything. It all don't make sense, but in that way that all fits together perfectly. If I laid the details on your your head would explode. Your head would explode. Think about that. It would only hurt for an instant. But the repercussions would be too severe for me to allow it to happen. So no.

I'm just starting to lighten up on what ended up being a fairly grim Wednesday in the midst of what was an unremarkable but hardly uplifting week. I was bummed, and then I had a reason to be bummed.

I was so bummed in fact that I skipped my once-a-week 3-hour (usually more like 2 1/4 hour) session of 20th Century Am Lit. I felt like I just needed to get on a train and couldn't focus on class, so I did. And then once I started to get over it (on the train) I felt a little guilty for skipping AmLit, because I had actually read Prufrock and wanted to know about it. Guess I'll send one of those annoying bulk "Hey guys sorry I missed class can I sponge some notes?" e-mails. Nobody to blame but myself.

I got a text whilst in the library computer lab (where I spend as much time as I feel I can get away with.) I had made plans with Julie (the girl to whom I have occasionally alluded here on SWP) for Hallowe'en. I was looking forward to it, but was also nervous as all hell. I was trying to get over the part of my brain that was telling me "This isn't actually happening, dude," when she texted me to say she wasn't coming. Boo. I was both disappointed and relieved. Save it for later. Release me of my anxiety. The reason for her cancellation of course has nothing to do (directly) with me, but instead is due to a situation so complicated that, even if it were my place to describe it (it's basically not) it would lead to the above-described head-explosion. And I don't know about the rest of the readers of this blog, but Linda needs hers.

So I was a little bummed, but optimistic that we could work it out later, and just hoping she could get her situation worked out to satisfaction. I got on with my day and went to my Sci-Fi tutorial.

I've gotten two papers back this week. I mentioned the first - a fail. the one I got today was a 70-something (or maybe just 70, I haven't double-checked) and I feel worse about it. This is what really got me down. 120 papers in the whole goddamn class (well probably less) and mine is one of the 15 the Prof selects to mark on his own. Not that that made much of a difference, I'm just marveling at the odds. Prior to handing in my paper, I sought out my TA for some formal advice. He misheard my question and I misheard his answer, leading to that rare perfect storm of miscommunication that really fucks Scotto over. The whole thing was about footnotes, which should've been a simple matter. You need yer goddamn footnotes. Still, I wasn't liking mine and asked if I could forego them. The TA, as I said, misunderstood what I was asking, and provided the answer to the question he thought I'd asked. Then I went ahead and axed all my footnotes. Do not ask why. Thus I completed my paper and it was handed in for marking.

I wasn't feeling particularly proud of the paper and wished I'd left myself more time to write it properly - or cohesively. As it was, the jumbled mess I handed in got a B for content (hurray) and a C for format (not hurray) which included both structure and the matter of footnotes vis a vis a lack thereof inasmuch suchlike therefore. Ahem.

At first I was bitter, because the miscommunication I vaguely described was ultimately to blame for my stylistic faux pas. Ultimately, it probably cost me a few marks and I contemplated hashing it out with the prof. In the end, I've decided it just plain wasn't worth it. The footnotes, in the big picture, were a small symptom of the stylistic problem with the paper, and I know it. I resent the Prof's assessment that I "need badly" to visit the Writing center. The best he should have said is that "Based on this one paper it seems you would benefit greatly from the writing center," and I surely would have. The 80's I got on my first-year papers suggest I have a decent handle on essay writing. I just wasn't with it this time around. And I accept that as my own fault and will take it as a lesson for next time, when I will blow them the fuck away.

The problem I seem to have lately is an extreme vagueness in assignment papers. I look at them and I can't see what they want, beyond "a paper of such-and-such length... on the subject of this course's study." Three papers this past month, each slightly less a car wreck than the last, if I were to estimate. Although the jury is still out on the History one.

This is where my last-week consideration of "what if I dropped out?" pops up just a little bit. Who needs the hassle? And the answer is, I suppose I do, until something better comes up. We'll see. We'll see.

Man, I'm just a walking identity crisis ain't I?

I stopped typing a while and left it there while I lay out on the couch. It was... nice.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott