It Begins
I know I should be happy right now-really, really happy. I guess I kind of am, but there are some things that are really getting me down.
I touched upon the fact that I didn’t get high honors for my thesis and only got honors in my previous entry, I think. I was pretty disappointed about that, but I kept telling myself that maybe high honors was really hard to get and maybe only a few people got it, etc. Well, what if I told that there were nine theses in English, and that one of them got summa cum laude/highest honors (which I wasn’t eligible for because my GPA wasn’t high enough), seven got high honors, and only one got honors? Yup, I’m not even kidding. My thesis was the only thesis in English to get honors; everyone else got high honors or above. My thesis was judged to be the worst thesis in English.
Talk about a freaking slap in the face. I mean, didn’t they realize that giving every single thesis but one high honors would make that one person feel pretty damn bad? Did the department really not realize that that one person who wasn’t judged good enough would feel slighted, insulted, and, oh, I don’t know, a little hurt? Honestly, I would feel a million times better if even only one other person in the department was given honors, but that wasn’t the case. Being told that you’re the worst, though…that freaking hurts.
OK, so maybe I’m not the worst. I’m sure there were other English students who took Independent Study and who set out to write theses and who didn’t end up with any kind of honors; I can pretty much be positive of that. Still. I just don’t see how they could give high honors to everyone but me. Did they really think I wouldn’t notice? Did they really think I would be OK with that? Did they really think I wouldn’t be hurt?
I can try to tell myself certain things. My advisor was never supportive of me; maybe she told the department I didn’t deserve high honors, and maybe it was all her fault. Maybe the department didn’t want to give everyone high honors because they would look easy or something, so they decided to give honors to one. (Still, wouldn’t they have chosen the worst one?) Maybe they looked at things beyond the thesis, like my grades in my literature courses (which they’re probably not supposed to do, but whatever), and decided that, based on that, I didn’t deserve high honors. Maybe it was because I wrote about something so controversial, something so out of norm from the typical literary analyses pieces and short story collections. Maybe.
The thing is, though, that I really don’t think like that. The same things keep playing in my head. My thesis was the worst. Everyone else was better than I was. I didn’t deserve high honors. I didn’t work as hard as everyone else. I’m a bad writer. Everyone else is a better writer than I am. I don’t deserve good things. I’ll never be good at anything. Everyone hates me. I shouldn’t be going to graduate school. I’m nothing more than a wannabe. I suck. I’ll never get anywhere in life. I shouldn’t even try to write, because obviously I’m terrible at it. I don’t deserve to live.
OK, so maybe that last one is a little extreme, but it does pop up now and then. I just don’t know what I did wrong. Did they think I didn’t work hard enough? My thesis was almost 160 pages; it was by far the longest one there. (Yes, of course, length isn’t everything, and I’m a firm believer in quality over quantity, but the fact that I wrote so much should at least show that I put a lot of time and effort into it.) I’m tempted to email my advisor and just ask, Why? I won’t, though.
I know I should be happy. It’s honors, after all, and lots of people in other departments only got honors. To be told that you’re the worst, though, that you aren’t as good as everyone else, well, it just plain hurts. Even Cherrie, who has been teaching for a long time and who is known for being very strict about grades and stuff, thought it was pretty mean to give high honors to eight people and honors to only one. I mean, no one wants to be singled out as the worst. I guess it’s what I deserve, though.
I also pretty unhappy because I uploaded the pictures from graduation to my computer, and I look downright disgusting. I’m freaking gross. I cannot believe I look this fat. I feel so ashamed of myself. The fact that I even weighed eight pounds more than I do now up until January completely freaks me out, because I don’t even want to think about what I looked like then. I don’t look skinny at all. I look like a freaking fatass. I’ll attach some pictures to this entry as proof.
I need to lose weight, to restrict as much as possible. I want this stupid Abilify out of my system as soon as possible. I’ve been off it for over two weeks, but it stays in your system forever, supposedly. God, I can’t stay like this. I can’t look this fat.
I guess I should look at the positive. I graduated, and the ceremony was nice and I was glad that my mother, grandmother, and Cherrie were there. (My father and uncle were at my sister’s graduation.) Laurel Parade was very nice. I found out from American University that I was accepted. (LOL, talk about last minute! I won’t be going there, though, because Sarah Lawrence is way closer and will end up costing a whole lot less.) Getting into almost half of the MFA programs you apply to is pretty impressive, given that they’re ridiculously selective. I received a lot of money for graduation, and it will definitely help with living expenses; I think if I work at school I’ll be able to pull it off. (Before receiving this money I wasn’t so sure.) It’s hard, though.
The worst part is that it will only get harder. The Abilify will be completely out of my system soon, and then things will really start to go downhill. This, my friends, is probably only the calm before the storm. Here’s hoping I’ll survive.
