Flailin', Failin'
Actually, I can't believe that I never heard a joke during the previous election along the lines of "Flailin' Failin' Palin".
It's the eleventh hour. If I want to go to college in September, I have to be done with applying...now, more or less.
I don't have a problem filling out forms with my parents' places of birth or anything. As usual, it's the actually substantial work that I find myself at a loss for.
This goddamned essay...
Don't get me wrong, I like writing, I really do.
But there's no aspect of myself that would be appealing to any serious university, so that's out.
There isn't any one thing I'm really passionate about, so I can't write about that.
And nothing significant has EVER happened in my life, so...
I mean, it's not like I don't think serious thoughts. They're just more concise than a full-length essay. Same with this whole teacher letter thing-- I could get about 75% of the teachers in that forsaken doom school to say a couple good sentences about me, but I can't imagine any of them having anything substantial to say enough that it would fill an entire letter. And through all this, I'm not really sure if I want to GO to college. I want to live away from home and do random stuff with my friends on weeknights and go eat meals whenever I feel like it, but none of those things necessarily require going to college. Honestly, I can't think of anything I'd want to do less at this point in my life than going back to the academic world for four more years. Guh...I mean, I don't know, writing papers just makes me feel stupid, and there doesn't seem to be much more to it than writing papers. (WORSHIP MLA, FOR IT IS GOD! --ahem-- Thanks, high school, NOW I feel like I'm ready to move on to the real world.)
The fact of the matter is, though, that I don't really have a choice. I don't want to be a car mechanic or a hairstylist or a checkout clerk or a full-time mom. I mean, I can't think of a degree-requiring job that I would want either. I mean, except for "Replacement for Jon Stewart When He Retires" (not that it would be possible even if I were in "the biz". Comedy is still a breeding ground for sexism).
Basically, the rest of my life depends on my pulling a coherent and convincing essay about my own positive characteristics directly out of my ass within the next three or four days. Man, I gotta get this shit together and I don't know where to start! Shouldn't someone have been helping me with this?! You can bet your ass that at Snooty New Jersey Private School they were planning for this time since the 8th fucking grade! Just because I don't have absurdly rich grandparents means I don't deserve even a little bit of fucking planning when I need it? No one from that idiot house of a school even ASKED me about it! You would think after this amount of time and this amount of fuck-uppery they would at least toss a "Hey Maddie, you should start applying to college soon" my way...
GRAHHH...thinking about it makes me feel a little sick, and more than a little angry. Aren't pivotal moments supposed to be more epic? This is just DUMB, is what it is.
I'm just dumb.
Maybe the whole thing was some Secret Test of Character, where I have to fight tooth and nail for something that I don't really want anymore, that they've been chasing me away from while telling me they were a stepping stone towards it. And only if I'm willing to keep fighting anyway will I have shown that I'm persistent enough to stop living with my parents.
Well, fuck, I guess I failed.
Mmmmgh. It's too important for me to throw in the towel right now, but...
There's nothing I can do. I should have never let this whole thing start. If only I could figure out where it did start...well, it wouldn't really make a difference.
Morning again. Instead of being excited about getting that much closer to the future, I've just been feeling shell-shocked at the amount of time I've already wasted.
Damn, all the circumstances pile against me at the worst times. I need to learn to time this stuff. Gawd. I am so pissed off at my parents for cutting the net at the beginning of the month. If it turns out that I needed that week and a half (and that's looking like the situation at this point), I'm going to flip a fucking lid. Like, even now, if I say something mean to them, instead of apologizing I'm just going to say, "You deserve it." No amount of spending money and free shit could make up for such a monumentally idiotic fuck-up as cutting off the internet when I have a month left to apply to college. Agh. I wish I hadn't been so desperate...because that situation did NOT deserve the peaceful resolution it ended up getting.
Even if I got a punching bag, I'd still feel like an asshole hitting it. Not because I'd feel bad for it or anything, but because there would be nothing I could do to retaliate against whoever it was I was really upset with.
Yeah, the way we deal with issues in civilized society is apparently writing angsty LJ entries.
So WRITING in itself isn't the problem. Well, maybe it is. Every time I try to come up with some bullshit that colleges will like, I just find myself coming out with this junk. I wonder if I took a wrong turn somewhere...