Guardian angels with bad teeth and perfect timing

[fullspeedbaby]

So last night I decide, for good, that I'm leaving school because I don't fit in and I'm not good academically...etc. And I talk to chantal and louise and erik and dad about it, and I make up my mind to leave

Comments

[scalarparty]

...and i know im not a great person to offer academic advice (seeing that it took me 7yrs to get my BFA, got kicked out of my dept(after yr5), ran away to BC and treeplanting, and really only came back because i fell in love with a student from my hometown (then won some awards, and was let back in to complete the degree). But still i think that couple may have had something...

sure you may not want to be an "Artist" but to leave that door slighly ajar in case one day you do want to use that system... it can't hinder (unless you REALLY CONSTANTLY feel that you ought to be doing something completely different, like going into halth or naturopatics or some healing work...). Once a long time ago, I was shooting this film across canada and picked up these hitchhikers. They were NSCAD students on the lam (actually the RCMP were looking for them back in halifax) and they had dropped out (something about cookies? and sobeys?) they were soooo cute, they had these mini-comic books of the whole story with the RCMP and wherever we went they would insert these comics into magazines and newspapers (across the country) it was defintely inspired, and they were totally not inot the system at all-- but the funny thing is i just heard that she is now a prof at Emily Carr and some big canadian art Playa, kinda funny. I guess at some point she went back, paid the piper and completed her work, because obviously you cant be a prof without finishing your degree... but either way with you FSB-- you're going to be brilliant and live fully no matter which route you take. I can tell!

[fullspeedbaby]

thanks.
here's the thing though: do you think it they were just testing me, or actually warning me not to drop out?
maybe the trick here is to stick to my guns. i feel like it isn't though.

[scalarparty]

ha that's a tough one... could be there for you to listen to, or could be the other side of the whole (shiva destroyer side, as opposed to say the visnu sustainer side, for lack of better words and abundance of crapy ones like "dark side") right, like it could be that you know what to do and then they come in to disuade you... because the side of your mind/attitude that has fear and doubt and all that wants you to stay put and not evolve... but then again they could be there for you because you aren't supposed to drop out, like you say warning you.... Sorry kid, but there's only ONE who can really tell you. and you know that. And that one is inside your you-ness, so really more meditating, and peeling away the layers to get to the core of it. not me not anyone on lj not any strangers on the street, YOU are it, M, it's all in you!

But one thing i can say for sure, academics dont prove shit. and popularity (while it's absence may be felt) is just more illusion. having the time to stress out on canvass and to focus on expressing (wether its what the profs want or not) that is very rich times, i mean it sure beats working in a factory 40 hours a week (not to say that you would do that, and being on an organic farm in hawaii could be supa nice).

Do you feel that being an artist is awaste fo time or something? (personally i have battled with that a lot-- it shifts from being the most vain useless thing on the pklanet, to the most inmportant, and then back again..) Because that could be a hindrance... then again in school its all about "Artists" not artists. And the ones (I could see) you working with (and like) are maybe not the capital 'A' Artists, but who cares? you know those freaks like Tonya Kay are out there... [not to mention Alex Grey even if no professor thinks he's aiight, he is killah] making RELEVANT work all about this consciousness raising and (r)evolution ((and i think it would suck if you weren't on the team))

[scalarparty]

"it shifts from being the most vain useless thing on the pklanet, to the most inmportant, and then back again."

definately!
but for me to worry about this anymore is about as useful as worrying whether or not being a girl is a waste of time. It's jut who I am and I can't escape it. school or not, i'm an artist. I've tried not being one and it doesn't work at all. My main problem with school was that it wasn't artistic enough, but I'm gonna suck it up and keep at it. :)
thanks for your advice and kind words.

[fullspeedbaby]

clearly, that was me.
and hey. I got kicked out too! we have a lot in common.