Future Uncertainty.
There's been a lot of shit kicking around in my head, which is funny because while it's there and making a huge racket, I feel like the neighbours who live underneath the source and are more generally annoyed at it's existence rather than any one particular incident. If I had to point to any one catalyst, though, it'd have to be the uncertain struggle I've been having with this semester. Last semester, while it did have it's craptastic moments, was easily the best semester I have ever had and it shows in the straight A grades I got. And I thought I was going to be okay this semester -- I was lined up for another film class with a teacher I adore and have Lily-sama join me no less, I was taking an interesting Modern Japanese Literature and the Urban Experience, Beyond the Borders of Western Imagination, and well the Psychology I was never thrilled with. Turns out the film class wasn't quite what I was expecting (although after tonight's The House of Bamboo I chide myself for ever doubting that man), "Modern" meant Meiji and the development of the city apparently (which is more interesting as I stay on, although I'm probably the only one who thinks so), and the Borders class turns out to be lest about the Western and more about black empowerment and feminism. The fuck? And don't even get me started on psych. Thus, the fun begins. I've tried Ancient Greek Theatre, The Parthenon, Italian Baroque (at 10AM no less), Abnormal Psychology, Asian/Pacific/American Media and Culture. Everything else has either been filled, conflicts, sucks, or doesn't exist. I lucked out and got into an amazing class with an awesome professor on Romantics and the Revolutionaries so that's quite fun. But all of this waiting to hear back from professors and constantly being denied access codes and trying to struggle currently with getting said clearence code to get into a film class -- it just wears me out. Especially with helpful parental comments such as, "I don't care, so long as it gets you to your degree."
And of course, being the horrible child I am, I have a crisis over what is my degree? I've gone art history, writing, Japanese culture and mass media? Maybe? Of course teaching myself the language on the side should go over real well, ne? It all boils down the very simplistic sounding issue: I don't know where I want to be or what I want to do so I don't know what to get a degree in. Thus, I hedge. I attach, "I think," or "Something like that," anytime I am asked what I'm here for. With senior year looming in the not so distant future, I feel as if I should be more concrete on this matter. At this rate, it most likely will be the Culture and Mass Media, focused on Japan with a minor in writing. And then what? Apply for grad school? MFA in creative writing or something a little more "practical." Is any of this even practical? What the hell would I even do with a degree in culture and mass media? I don't want to work in the industry. And I seriously wonder how many critical essays I could write on the subject. God help me if I get reduced to movie reviews in a local paper. Where will all of this get me?
When I was in high school, I was certain of two things by the time I was a junior: I wanted to persue art history and I wanted to be in London. That was all there was to it. Until reality smacked me around a fair bit and reminded me that learning Italian, French, and German within the course of undergraduate to Ph.D. was an impossibility and London was just as impossible. Then my dad lost his job and London really went out the window and I had a boyfriend who wished fervently for me to stay in this country. Somewhere I became, maybe not so much complacent, but I at least relinquished the idea. London lost a lot of its appeal for reasons I still don't quite understand and I was able to understand the financial implications were simply not worth my whims. I don't know when it was, but London lost something to me, some meaning. The nostalgia just wasn't there anymore, it no longer was associated with where I wanted to be. The nonchalant attitude I have toward it is a little odd when I stand outside myself. In arguments with my parents, I feverishly threw around that I would go there and foresake this country, something which obviously didn't sit well with them, although it was my mother who mostly objected, not that that's surprising. I placed meanings on it, I moved on. When looking back in my journals, I see there are pages and pages dedicated to the topic, trying to figure out just what changed. To be a bullshit sort of poetic, when was it I turned from the land of fog to the land of the rising sun? Why Japan? What is it that calls me there? Why do I presume to think of it in such familiar ways when I've never even set foot in the country?
A lot of London was me trying to run away from things, although I'm sure I would have found it mostly was myself. I just wanted to get away, get out of here, go somewhere else and just be. And now? I'm not really running away, but the desire to pick up and leave is still there. I think it will always be there, something which makes me wonder why I am so nomadic. My mother wants to stay close to family and sometimes I think if she had her way, we'd live in the same town always, given comments made about following me to graduate school and her protests over Japan's location. Trying to imagine my mother, much as I love the dear woman, it's a bit painful. If London was bad, Tokyo would be something worse. She is not city material, which is just as well since she doesn't like them. She argues with me because I can't see myself in a suburban community with a white fence, a kid, living there and being content. The point where I get tripped up in those little tiffs if that I can't articulate just where I see myself. I'm still not accustomed to projecting into the future, especially when it concerns myself, so I can't really answer the question. I try to comfort myself that I've still got time before that and try to focus on the more immediate issue of education.
My dear friend, she has graduated and wants a year off, minimum, because she needs a "break from academia." I myself can't fathom such a desire. But that is because I thrive in this environment whereas for her it was a chore, which is understandable since that's the majority, I'm sure. I find my progression amusing, though. Apparently as a child I wished to be in college because I found school too easy at such a young age, in middle school I wanted to be anywhere but, in high school I just wanted out because it was a ridiculous waste of my time, and in college I don't so much want to stay here so much as in the system. In high school, I was notorious for never reading the books because I thought them beneathe me or just pointless exercises. I rarely paid attention in class but was never called out on it, I always got straight A's without any amount of effort (exception being math, language, and science of course), and I would always do homework practically the period before it was due. In one history class in particular, since I loathed being forced to take American history, not to mention being stuck in a class where we were treated with little kid gloves and our homework notes were checked daily, I got to the point where I just kept showing her the exact same page over and over again, only changing the first heading. We were talking about the Industrial Revolution and I was still showing her notes on the Indians and pilgrams without her being any the wiser. Classes were so easy they just weren't the effort. And thus I come to NYU and was expecting something better than that only to find out it's the same damn thing only without as many tests and quizzes. So disappointing. And so I stayed in the habit of not reading. Until recently, that is. I blame my film professor for the brunt of this, not that he knows that.
Victoria always gave interesting readings and handouts, and since I would do anything for that woman, I was always prepared in that class. I respected her like few others and thus would do anything for her. But it really wasn't until I took the film class that I started actually noticing readings, so to speak. Freshman year I didn't even bother to buy the course packets because I never read them anyway. That largly remains true to this day, although I sadly buy and don't read. But in the film class, yeah the first few readings were kind of dull but after a point, I started enjoying them. I have since bought a great majority of the books and it's the reason why titles like, "Recentering Globalization" were on my Christmas list. When I would go to write essays for the class, I would get so caught up in re-reading them that I would forget to write the essay and that was what was at fault for dragging out the time so much. It's the only class, excepting Victoria's, that I read every single thing I was given. And enjoyed it. It was the Darell William Davis piece that just clicked in my head and it's the whole reason I turned to culture and mass media in the first place. It's why I'm shocked at myself this semester because I'm still doing all the readings. And not just for his class, which ironically I'm behind on, but all of them. In my Romantics class, even though the one piece was tedious and confusing in the beginning, by the end of it I was talking back at the damn thing, so caught up in it I became. Not to mention the plays in that class! I can't remember the last time I was disappointed when I ran out of pages like I did when reading The Critic. And even my urban class, I've gotten really into the history readings and I fucking take notes. Since when?! I get bored, I read. I have some spare time, I read. Even if it's reading a bit, looking at things on the internet, I end up going back to the reading. I'm going to read myself blind, I swear to god. I have so many great books planned out for my colloquium that I just don't have the time for all the reading. The passion that's there for the material is great since it's what the degree at this point is focusing on, but I still marvell at the changes, honestly. I had been so turned off of reading for so long after my long love of it, but it seems I'm finally returning to it. Ah, to live my life in the pages again.
But what else? There's a general unease when I start thinking of what's to come. I never dealt well with uncertainty, though. At this point there's a general plan, but I guess I'm afraid that I'll go down this road and it will be like art history: insanely passionate at first, read everything and know everything with frightening retention, only to find something else later. I like a challenge, I like learning, but once I hit a point where things become repeatative, I get bored. I move on to whatever new and shiny thing is there. Not that I don't still love it, but it's just my attentions are now mostly focused elsewhere. I just have this fear of following this through only to get to the end and go, "Well, that was fun. Now what?" Especially given that I'm going out on a limb here, persuing something that isn't 100% supported by my family. It mostly earns me weird looks (which given my parents is hard to accomplish, trust me) from them and shrugs of, "Don't get it, but whatever makes you happy," with the unspoken, "and profitable," lying in the undertones. I don't know if I get it either. All I know is it's the first thing in a long time that's had me passionate about anything. It's nice. "Losing" art history in general makes me sad and I can't tell you how depressed I get when I'm at a museum and fail to recall a specific fact or catch myself mispeaking and correcting myself. Not to mention my issues with writing, although I was asked today by someone I was formerly in a workshop with if I was taking any this semester and I didn't feel at all sad about saying, "No." In some ways, it was almost a relief. But such as it is.
So it's not enough to get me "depressed," and my god do I have plenty to distract me and keep things in perspective, but I find myself a touch morose from time to time. Am I doing the right thing? Is this really going to be okay? Will I ever get this shit figured out? Is it really okay to not know what I want from myself, let alone life? Am I expecting too much? I'd feel so much better if my schedule would figure itself out. I'm sick of not knowing where I'm going every day, of not knowing when my time will be occupied. A little sign that I'm not fucking up would be nice, though.
And going home this weekend, I was dreading it, but in some ways I think it'll be okay. In others, not so much. The past has been returning in odd ways with reappearences and thoughts brought to light that weren't expected. Perhaps that's the other thing, which when speaking with Naro-san, she was recalling this one particularlly vivid and comforting (yet vexing at the same time, which I adore her for) memory, a time where she can reside in when things are tough. Where do I linger? Trying to think back in my past to a "safe" time, that's enough to set me moody. There's always something, someone to cause waves in those places. And listening to Lily talk about her fond memories of her high school, it's weird to realise my happiest memories are in the presence of two teachers: one for what he taught me about art history and the other what he taught me about daydreaming of sex and not getting caught. Or something like that. Sure, there were a lot of fun moments, but do I fondly think back on those times, turn to them when the present is not so wonderful? I'm a firm believer that people return to the past when facing uncertainty in the future: it's a lot easier to deal with old uncertainty that has some amount of closure rather than that which you have no way of knowing. And yet, to what time do I return? Perhaps it's my outstanding habit of turning to the imaginary rather than the real for comfort, usually someone that isn't even me, just something else to watch, to distract. It's nice, but sometimes I wonder if the real is something I shouldn't be lacking. It makes me wonder, in the future, will I think of now? Where will I seek my comfort?
And so there are a lot of words that amount to the same old thing. I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm trying to convince myself that it's okay. Sometimes I buy into it and other times, not so much. What I'm amazed at is how steady my footing has been through this, though, that I haven't fallen to pieces, where I can recognize I would have lost it a long, long time ago. I may not handle it well, but I am still handeling it to some extent or another. I think that must count for something. I'd like to know just what's in store, but there's only so much I can do about that. At least I'm doing something productive with my time like reading. Or watching cracktastic things with Lily and laughing in a way that I will miss. If nothing else, she gives me faith in people and I take comfort in the fact that people like her and others exist. Not so alone that way. It's nice. And since I can't tell if this whole thing has been depressive or positive, I think I'll just leave it at that and continue to read and/or giggle about the homoeroticism in The House of Bamboo. Here's hoping that everything works out tomorrow with getting into the film class. If it does, I will be elated, and if not, god help me, I'll be a raging little depressive for a while, so don't mind me either way.
And of course, being the horrible child I am, I have a crisis over what is my degree? I've gone art history, writing, Japanese culture and mass media? Maybe? Of course teaching myself the language on the side should go over real well, ne? It all boils down the very simplistic sounding issue: I don't know where I want to be or what I want to do so I don't know what to get a degree in. Thus, I hedge. I attach, "I think," or "Something like that," anytime I am asked what I'm here for. With senior year looming in the not so distant future, I feel as if I should be more concrete on this matter. At this rate, it most likely will be the Culture and Mass Media, focused on Japan with a minor in writing. And then what? Apply for grad school? MFA in creative writing or something a little more "practical." Is any of this even practical? What the hell would I even do with a degree in culture and mass media? I don't want to work in the industry. And I seriously wonder how many critical essays I could write on the subject. God help me if I get reduced to movie reviews in a local paper. Where will all of this get me?
When I was in high school, I was certain of two things by the time I was a junior: I wanted to persue art history and I wanted to be in London. That was all there was to it. Until reality smacked me around a fair bit and reminded me that learning Italian, French, and German within the course of undergraduate to Ph.D. was an impossibility and London was just as impossible. Then my dad lost his job and London really went out the window and I had a boyfriend who wished fervently for me to stay in this country. Somewhere I became, maybe not so much complacent, but I at least relinquished the idea. London lost a lot of its appeal for reasons I still don't quite understand and I was able to understand the financial implications were simply not worth my whims. I don't know when it was, but London lost something to me, some meaning. The nostalgia just wasn't there anymore, it no longer was associated with where I wanted to be. The nonchalant attitude I have toward it is a little odd when I stand outside myself. In arguments with my parents, I feverishly threw around that I would go there and foresake this country, something which obviously didn't sit well with them, although it was my mother who mostly objected, not that that's surprising. I placed meanings on it, I moved on. When looking back in my journals, I see there are pages and pages dedicated to the topic, trying to figure out just what changed. To be a bullshit sort of poetic, when was it I turned from the land of fog to the land of the rising sun? Why Japan? What is it that calls me there? Why do I presume to think of it in such familiar ways when I've never even set foot in the country?
A lot of London was me trying to run away from things, although I'm sure I would have found it mostly was myself. I just wanted to get away, get out of here, go somewhere else and just be. And now? I'm not really running away, but the desire to pick up and leave is still there. I think it will always be there, something which makes me wonder why I am so nomadic. My mother wants to stay close to family and sometimes I think if she had her way, we'd live in the same town always, given comments made about following me to graduate school and her protests over Japan's location. Trying to imagine my mother, much as I love the dear woman, it's a bit painful. If London was bad, Tokyo would be something worse. She is not city material, which is just as well since she doesn't like them. She argues with me because I can't see myself in a suburban community with a white fence, a kid, living there and being content. The point where I get tripped up in those little tiffs if that I can't articulate just where I see myself. I'm still not accustomed to projecting into the future, especially when it concerns myself, so I can't really answer the question. I try to comfort myself that I've still got time before that and try to focus on the more immediate issue of education.
My dear friend, she has graduated and wants a year off, minimum, because she needs a "break from academia." I myself can't fathom such a desire. But that is because I thrive in this environment whereas for her it was a chore, which is understandable since that's the majority, I'm sure. I find my progression amusing, though. Apparently as a child I wished to be in college because I found school too easy at such a young age, in middle school I wanted to be anywhere but, in high school I just wanted out because it was a ridiculous waste of my time, and in college I don't so much want to stay here so much as in the system. In high school, I was notorious for never reading the books because I thought them beneathe me or just pointless exercises. I rarely paid attention in class but was never called out on it, I always got straight A's without any amount of effort (exception being math, language, and science of course), and I would always do homework practically the period before it was due. In one history class in particular, since I loathed being forced to take American history, not to mention being stuck in a class where we were treated with little kid gloves and our homework notes were checked daily, I got to the point where I just kept showing her the exact same page over and over again, only changing the first heading. We were talking about the Industrial Revolution and I was still showing her notes on the Indians and pilgrams without her being any the wiser. Classes were so easy they just weren't the effort. And thus I come to NYU and was expecting something better than that only to find out it's the same damn thing only without as many tests and quizzes. So disappointing. And so I stayed in the habit of not reading. Until recently, that is. I blame my film professor for the brunt of this, not that he knows that.
Victoria always gave interesting readings and handouts, and since I would do anything for that woman, I was always prepared in that class. I respected her like few others and thus would do anything for her. But it really wasn't until I took the film class that I started actually noticing readings, so to speak. Freshman year I didn't even bother to buy the course packets because I never read them anyway. That largly remains true to this day, although I sadly buy and don't read. But in the film class, yeah the first few readings were kind of dull but after a point, I started enjoying them. I have since bought a great majority of the books and it's the reason why titles like, "Recentering Globalization" were on my Christmas list. When I would go to write essays for the class, I would get so caught up in re-reading them that I would forget to write the essay and that was what was at fault for dragging out the time so much. It's the only class, excepting Victoria's, that I read every single thing I was given. And enjoyed it. It was the Darell William Davis piece that just clicked in my head and it's the whole reason I turned to culture and mass media in the first place. It's why I'm shocked at myself this semester because I'm still doing all the readings. And not just for his class, which ironically I'm behind on, but all of them. In my Romantics class, even though the one piece was tedious and confusing in the beginning, by the end of it I was talking back at the damn thing, so caught up in it I became. Not to mention the plays in that class! I can't remember the last time I was disappointed when I ran out of pages like I did when reading The Critic. And even my urban class, I've gotten really into the history readings and I fucking take notes. Since when?! I get bored, I read. I have some spare time, I read. Even if it's reading a bit, looking at things on the internet, I end up going back to the reading. I'm going to read myself blind, I swear to god. I have so many great books planned out for my colloquium that I just don't have the time for all the reading. The passion that's there for the material is great since it's what the degree at this point is focusing on, but I still marvell at the changes, honestly. I had been so turned off of reading for so long after my long love of it, but it seems I'm finally returning to it. Ah, to live my life in the pages again.
But what else? There's a general unease when I start thinking of what's to come. I never dealt well with uncertainty, though. At this point there's a general plan, but I guess I'm afraid that I'll go down this road and it will be like art history: insanely passionate at first, read everything and know everything with frightening retention, only to find something else later. I like a challenge, I like learning, but once I hit a point where things become repeatative, I get bored. I move on to whatever new and shiny thing is there. Not that I don't still love it, but it's just my attentions are now mostly focused elsewhere. I just have this fear of following this through only to get to the end and go, "Well, that was fun. Now what?" Especially given that I'm going out on a limb here, persuing something that isn't 100% supported by my family. It mostly earns me weird looks (which given my parents is hard to accomplish, trust me) from them and shrugs of, "Don't get it, but whatever makes you happy," with the unspoken, "and profitable," lying in the undertones. I don't know if I get it either. All I know is it's the first thing in a long time that's had me passionate about anything. It's nice. "Losing" art history in general makes me sad and I can't tell you how depressed I get when I'm at a museum and fail to recall a specific fact or catch myself mispeaking and correcting myself. Not to mention my issues with writing, although I was asked today by someone I was formerly in a workshop with if I was taking any this semester and I didn't feel at all sad about saying, "No." In some ways, it was almost a relief. But such as it is.
So it's not enough to get me "depressed," and my god do I have plenty to distract me and keep things in perspective, but I find myself a touch morose from time to time. Am I doing the right thing? Is this really going to be okay? Will I ever get this shit figured out? Is it really okay to not know what I want from myself, let alone life? Am I expecting too much? I'd feel so much better if my schedule would figure itself out. I'm sick of not knowing where I'm going every day, of not knowing when my time will be occupied. A little sign that I'm not fucking up would be nice, though.
And going home this weekend, I was dreading it, but in some ways I think it'll be okay. In others, not so much. The past has been returning in odd ways with reappearences and thoughts brought to light that weren't expected. Perhaps that's the other thing, which when speaking with Naro-san, she was recalling this one particularlly vivid and comforting (yet vexing at the same time, which I adore her for) memory, a time where she can reside in when things are tough. Where do I linger? Trying to think back in my past to a "safe" time, that's enough to set me moody. There's always something, someone to cause waves in those places. And listening to Lily talk about her fond memories of her high school, it's weird to realise my happiest memories are in the presence of two teachers: one for what he taught me about art history and the other what he taught me about daydreaming of sex and not getting caught. Or something like that. Sure, there were a lot of fun moments, but do I fondly think back on those times, turn to them when the present is not so wonderful? I'm a firm believer that people return to the past when facing uncertainty in the future: it's a lot easier to deal with old uncertainty that has some amount of closure rather than that which you have no way of knowing. And yet, to what time do I return? Perhaps it's my outstanding habit of turning to the imaginary rather than the real for comfort, usually someone that isn't even me, just something else to watch, to distract. It's nice, but sometimes I wonder if the real is something I shouldn't be lacking. It makes me wonder, in the future, will I think of now? Where will I seek my comfort?
And so there are a lot of words that amount to the same old thing. I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm trying to convince myself that it's okay. Sometimes I buy into it and other times, not so much. What I'm amazed at is how steady my footing has been through this, though, that I haven't fallen to pieces, where I can recognize I would have lost it a long, long time ago. I may not handle it well, but I am still handeling it to some extent or another. I think that must count for something. I'd like to know just what's in store, but there's only so much I can do about that. At least I'm doing something productive with my time like reading. Or watching cracktastic things with Lily and laughing in a way that I will miss. If nothing else, she gives me faith in people and I take comfort in the fact that people like her and others exist. Not so alone that way. It's nice. And since I can't tell if this whole thing has been depressive or positive, I think I'll just leave it at that and continue to read and/or giggle about the homoeroticism in The House of Bamboo. Here's hoping that everything works out tomorrow with getting into the film class. If it does, I will be elated, and if not, god help me, I'll be a raging little depressive for a while, so don't mind me either way.