Yeah, that's right. Or something like that.
mmmm...I might have managed to not get annihilated on my midterm today. Democracy and Development, that is. It was so bad, Monday was spent studying for that steaming log of an exam, and then after four hours of sleep, got up this morning and did it all again. I was utterly out of it tonight. And yet I'm still up. Third wind, I guess.
Yesterday I sauntered into Middents's office to ask him about a thing or two. I had ostensibly visited to ask about putting him down as a reference for an application to the writing center. By the way, I just realized that I might not have any graded writing samples to give to them, and I'm wondering if they'll discover my freshman year fuck-up in college writing seminar. But that's beside the point. The other reason I found myself up there was the hope that I could possibly get some information about the MFA program in Creative writing, both at AU and in general. He actually took the initiative to march me down the hall and introduce me to one of the professors who is heavily involved with the whole thing and who knows a lot about the programs in general. I'm thinking that I might find my way back to her office after mid-term season finishes its gleeful ass-pounding and asking some questions.
It's so...well, altogether not surprising that I've come back to considering this as an actual study/career path. I still feel like it's assuming a lot about my writing ability to even be considering something like this. And what was so wrong with SIS anyway? I've spent more than half my college career convincing myself that I want to save the world. What the hell went wrong? Or did anything go wrong? I was thinking about that today while I was hunched over a table in Davenport trying to synthesize the differences between demo-power and demo-protection. (Demo-power refers to empowering the populace to take part in the government process, whereas demo-protection concentrates on protecting the populace from tyranny and abuses of power. Both are components of democratization and liberalization respectively. Duh.) Of course my stomach was churning and I was caving in from a combination of stress, fatigue, and a dangerous streak of demotivation due to my sudden change of heart concerning my life's direction, but at the same time, it all goes back to that thing about seeming so important. There I was, cramming high-minded concepts like all of the dedicated and disciplined students that I could never quite be. And more importantly, it just allowed me to get out of my own head. As numbing as it may seem (and is), studying SIS, politics, social sciences, allows me to step out of myself and stop stewing in my own thoughts, which is definitely a liberty I'll never be afforded by pursuing the creative writing route. Plus that sense of demotivation and detatchment is a nice change from the constant perfectionism and pressure that I feel whenever I try to do any sort of creative writing and that almost cripples me and prevents me from attempting it in the first place.
The best part? I have to register on October 25th, so I need to have a clue by then. The dilemma? To keep a double major, and not be able to take classes I want to take and not be able to concentrate as much on creative stuff, or to drop SIS to a minor or drop it altogether, concentrate more on what I want to do, and in the process graduate early than I planned and have to improvise until grad school, which might mean moving back home, treading water with some job in DC, or facing the daunting adventure of a new place. I realize that it's probably quite repetitive to hear me (or see, in this case) rant about my majors, but since there are about two people that read this, and completely out of their own volition, I'm not that concerned. Although in the interest of not alienating a slim audience, I should update this more often so I'm not pitching huge loaves of thought on a weekly basis like I have been.
Yesterday I sauntered into Middents's office to ask him about a thing or two. I had ostensibly visited to ask about putting him down as a reference for an application to the writing center. By the way, I just realized that I might not have any graded writing samples to give to them, and I'm wondering if they'll discover my freshman year fuck-up in college writing seminar. But that's beside the point. The other reason I found myself up there was the hope that I could possibly get some information about the MFA program in Creative writing, both at AU and in general. He actually took the initiative to march me down the hall and introduce me to one of the professors who is heavily involved with the whole thing and who knows a lot about the programs in general. I'm thinking that I might find my way back to her office after mid-term season finishes its gleeful ass-pounding and asking some questions.
It's so...well, altogether not surprising that I've come back to considering this as an actual study/career path. I still feel like it's assuming a lot about my writing ability to even be considering something like this. And what was so wrong with SIS anyway? I've spent more than half my college career convincing myself that I want to save the world. What the hell went wrong? Or did anything go wrong? I was thinking about that today while I was hunched over a table in Davenport trying to synthesize the differences between demo-power and demo-protection. (Demo-power refers to empowering the populace to take part in the government process, whereas demo-protection concentrates on protecting the populace from tyranny and abuses of power. Both are components of democratization and liberalization respectively. Duh.) Of course my stomach was churning and I was caving in from a combination of stress, fatigue, and a dangerous streak of demotivation due to my sudden change of heart concerning my life's direction, but at the same time, it all goes back to that thing about seeming so important. There I was, cramming high-minded concepts like all of the dedicated and disciplined students that I could never quite be. And more importantly, it just allowed me to get out of my own head. As numbing as it may seem (and is), studying SIS, politics, social sciences, allows me to step out of myself and stop stewing in my own thoughts, which is definitely a liberty I'll never be afforded by pursuing the creative writing route. Plus that sense of demotivation and detatchment is a nice change from the constant perfectionism and pressure that I feel whenever I try to do any sort of creative writing and that almost cripples me and prevents me from attempting it in the first place.
The best part? I have to register on October 25th, so I need to have a clue by then. The dilemma? To keep a double major, and not be able to take classes I want to take and not be able to concentrate as much on creative stuff, or to drop SIS to a minor or drop it altogether, concentrate more on what I want to do, and in the process graduate early than I planned and have to improvise until grad school, which might mean moving back home, treading water with some job in DC, or facing the daunting adventure of a new place. I realize that it's probably quite repetitive to hear me (or see, in this case) rant about my majors, but since there are about two people that read this, and completely out of their own volition, I'm not that concerned. Although in the interest of not alienating a slim audience, I should update this more often so I'm not pitching huge loaves of thought on a weekly basis like I have been.
posted by Justin @ 5:52 AM
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