I'm tryin' I'm tryin' I'm tryin' I'm tryin;...
Sigh, sigh, sigh.
I'm trying. You have to believe me when I say I'm trying.
I knew this was going to happen--not because I am a pessimist or a psychic, or a soothsayer or a truth-knower, but simply because I know myself and I knew awhile ago that college probably wasn't "for me." I look back at all the visits and application fees, all the road trips with my mom to the east coast, all the phone interviews and arguments with SCPA over my transcripts--all the late nights spent crying over the meager scraps I called a portfolio. All the late-night talks with Hayley, all the lists of possible majors ripped up to make more lists of possible "concentrations" or "minors." All the hasty nit-picking and criticizing of 20 different liberal art schools (my original "dream") to find "the right one for me," only to be accepted by two different art schools, one of which I painstakingly--rather, mistakenly--decided to attend.
And here I am.
Trying. Believe me--I know it's hard, I find it hardly believable myself--but I am actually trying.
And it will get me nowhere, because this school will get me nowhere, because I am running in place in a $120,000 (approximate sum of 4 years) gold-plated hamster wheel trying to get to a piece of fucking paper. This place is by far the most sterile, uninspired BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE I could ever have landed myself in. This place is the epitome of bullshit. This place is Montessori daycare for stitched-up coke-fucked hipster sycophants who want an easy "A," and I hate every goddamned ignorant, talentless, puffy-vested one of them with a passion I couldn't begin to describe for fear of aneurysm or heart attack or inappropriate projectile vomiting (I'm pretty sure there are times when such vomiting is appropriate, but I couldn't name them now.)
We are at an impasse. This is less emotional than it reads-- truly, I am looking at things quite practically, you must understand. I am not going to college for a degree, I am going to college to learn new things to gain--one would hope--some form of knowledge. Learning things here is proving impossible, and I could benefit from trying to learn things elsewhere, I'm pretty confident; places such as a liberal arts school where I could pay half as much money for twice the education and a degree that might even come in handy someday. I'm going to be an artist no matter what, that much I have always known--I am physically, mentally, emotionally and biologically incapable of being anything besides that. But we all know that degree is a degree, and with the economy and the general state of things, one could end up using a degree immediately after college, or one could find a much more fulfilling lifestyle doing dinner theatre and working at an Orange Julius part-time for the rest of one's life. Much like that wacky hat you keep in the back of the closet "Just In Case," a degree is about as useful as it is useless. I know this. You are surprised, yes?; I am becoming realistic!
And in this reality, I am considering the following options:
-Pursuing an arts education at another school (possibly the University of Chicago?) with a minor in environmental sciences or economics
-Taking another year off to train at the io theatre (Improv Olympics/The Del Close, where modern long-form improv comedy was birthed and developed, and where many of my comic idols have started off, and where I already know two teachers and an actor) and see if I really want to pursue comedy. If I do, we'll see from there whether or not I want to go back to school.
-Moving to Canada with Dallas (No, seriously.)
Besides this, I'm 100% dissatisfied with the American education system and don't particularly want to support it by (no matter WHOSE money it is) feeding tens of thousands of dollars back into the snakey, greedy jaws of privatized institutions, especially if I'm not even getting anything out of it.
Yep. Totally out of options and am on the brink of goal-hopelessness.
So, in other words, things are going pretty good.
p.s.:
Good things that have happened in the last two months or so:
-I have completely fallen in love with Dallas all over again, and we're doing really well.
-I did some urbex at the abandoned Brach's candy factory on the West side and it was a gargantuan, post-apocalyptic homeless community beyond your wildest Mad Max fantasies.
-I went to Comedians of Comedy the other night, and it was everything I could have hoped for for $30. We met fucking all of them and they were so nice and humble and grateful. I can die happy now that I've told Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford and Brian Posehn how much I respect them and love everything they touch.
Hoo-ray.
I'm trying. You have to believe me when I say I'm trying.
I knew this was going to happen--not because I am a pessimist or a psychic, or a soothsayer or a truth-knower, but simply because I know myself and I knew awhile ago that college probably wasn't "for me." I look back at all the visits and application fees, all the road trips with my mom to the east coast, all the phone interviews and arguments with SCPA over my transcripts--all the late nights spent crying over the meager scraps I called a portfolio. All the late-night talks with Hayley, all the lists of possible majors ripped up to make more lists of possible "concentrations" or "minors." All the hasty nit-picking and criticizing of 20 different liberal art schools (my original "dream") to find "the right one for me," only to be accepted by two different art schools, one of which I painstakingly--rather, mistakenly--decided to attend.
And here I am.
Trying. Believe me--I know it's hard, I find it hardly believable myself--but I am actually trying.
And it will get me nowhere, because this school will get me nowhere, because I am running in place in a $120,000 (approximate sum of 4 years) gold-plated hamster wheel trying to get to a piece of fucking paper. This place is by far the most sterile, uninspired BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE I could ever have landed myself in. This place is the epitome of bullshit. This place is Montessori daycare for stitched-up coke-fucked hipster sycophants who want an easy "A," and I hate every goddamned ignorant, talentless, puffy-vested one of them with a passion I couldn't begin to describe for fear of aneurysm or heart attack or inappropriate projectile vomiting (I'm pretty sure there are times when such vomiting is appropriate, but I couldn't name them now.)
We are at an impasse. This is less emotional than it reads-- truly, I am looking at things quite practically, you must understand. I am not going to college for a degree, I am going to college to learn new things to gain--one would hope--some form of knowledge. Learning things here is proving impossible, and I could benefit from trying to learn things elsewhere, I'm pretty confident; places such as a liberal arts school where I could pay half as much money for twice the education and a degree that might even come in handy someday. I'm going to be an artist no matter what, that much I have always known--I am physically, mentally, emotionally and biologically incapable of being anything besides that. But we all know that degree is a degree, and with the economy and the general state of things, one could end up using a degree immediately after college, or one could find a much more fulfilling lifestyle doing dinner theatre and working at an Orange Julius part-time for the rest of one's life. Much like that wacky hat you keep in the back of the closet "Just In Case," a degree is about as useful as it is useless. I know this. You are surprised, yes?; I am becoming realistic!
And in this reality, I am considering the following options:
-Pursuing an arts education at another school (possibly the University of Chicago?) with a minor in environmental sciences or economics
-Taking another year off to train at the io theatre (Improv Olympics/The Del Close, where modern long-form improv comedy was birthed and developed, and where many of my comic idols have started off, and where I already know two teachers and an actor) and see if I really want to pursue comedy. If I do, we'll see from there whether or not I want to go back to school.
-Moving to Canada with Dallas (No, seriously.)
Besides this, I'm 100% dissatisfied with the American education system and don't particularly want to support it by (no matter WHOSE money it is) feeding tens of thousands of dollars back into the snakey, greedy jaws of privatized institutions, especially if I'm not even getting anything out of it.
Yep. Totally out of options and am on the brink of goal-hopelessness.
So, in other words, things are going pretty good.
p.s.:
Good things that have happened in the last two months or so:
-I have completely fallen in love with Dallas all over again, and we're doing really well.
-I did some urbex at the abandoned Brach's candy factory on the West side and it was a gargantuan, post-apocalyptic homeless community beyond your wildest Mad Max fantasies.
-I went to Comedians of Comedy the other night, and it was everything I could have hoped for for $30. We met fucking all of them and they were so nice and humble and grateful. I can die happy now that I've told Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford and Brian Posehn how much I respect them and love everything they touch.
Hoo-ray.