(no subject)
Here is an email I sent to Jenn on Sunday, which I afterwards intended to post here but forgot to:
Jenn Henry!
I am most obviously procrastinating at the moment, but what better way to do so than by
emailing you? This is a good change from before -- I had been drawing little sketches of
beatniks in everyday situations. Beatnik mows the lawn. Beatnik cooks some soup.
Beatnik floats in the swimming pool. Beatniks are HILARIOUS when you start thinking
about them doing anything other than brooding, playing bongos, reciting poetry, snapping
their fingers in appreciation of poetry, drinking wine, and smoking cigarettes. I went
to a formal beatnik dinner party the other night, where all of those things happened
except for the cigarettes. We ate swanky vegetarian food, drank a lot of wine, acted
beat. Oh yeah, and we played the Ungame and 2 Truths and a Lie. Maybe that wasn't quite
so beat. And then I went to the Flogging Molly concert, still dressed all in black with
a beret and sunglasses. Best ever.
Here is what I am procrastinating on: my Marshall Scholarship personal statement. Dear
God, save me now. Really it is not so bad. Really it is almost even fun to write, when
I can get myself to do so. Mostly I have it (and anything else that involves
essay-writing) built up into my head to be this really monstrous thing, and plenty of bad
habits to support me putting it off as long as possible. This is my 2nd revision (read:
3rd draft) of said personal statement, and I'm running out of new and better ways to
express myself. And when I'm done with this one, I get to reorganize the whole thing
into a Fulbright project proposal. Yippee! I need to keep reminding myself that the
potential outcome (free grad school in Scotland for 2 years!) is worth far more than the
limited amount of emotional trauma that must be endured to get there.
Here are plans A through F for What I Will Be Doing With My Life Next Year, as listed the
other night on the white board by my bed:
PLAN A: Win a Marshall Scholarship. Study at Edinburgh College of Art.
PLAN B: Win a Fulbright Grant. Study at Edinburgh College of Art.
PLAN C: Win one of the 6 spots in the Whitman in China program. Teach English in China.
PLAN D: Join the Peace Corps.
PLAN E: Be a TA at SACI (my school in Italy).
PLAN F: Be an RD at Whitman. Stay here and postpone the real world for 2 more years.
These are important things to be thinking about and working towards, but GOD I just want
to be done with applications and live my life. Do my homework. Print diary-esque
postcards and mail them to strangers (this is the current path my thesis is taking). Run
my gallery. Play songs on the radio. Talk to my friends. Find someone to make out
with. Sleep.
Boys are frustrating and I don't understand them. This is a horribly generalizing
statement, but I think it is true (it is probably true of girls too, and if I were
interested in dating girls, I'm sure I would find them frustrating and impossible to
understand as well). All this really means is that nothing is happening at the moment,
but I wish it were.
It sounds like Morocco is full of new experiences. That's good. Try to stop having new
experiences like getting really sick thanks to Fesfood though. And keep telling me about
everything.
The procrastination must end, and it must end now. NOW!
Much much love,
Shelby
Since then:
Life has continued to be abnormally busy. I have spent more than 20 hours this week working on my Marshall and Fulbright applications. I went to bed at 6:30 Wednesday morning after having been up all night writing personal statements. The sun was coming up and Louise was already starting her day.
Here is a personal statement: I need to fucking sleep.
Scholarship applications have seemingly been taking precedence over everything else. Including sleep, thesis work, and emotional responsibility. I did literally ZERO work on my thesis between last Thursday and today, which made me quite nervous for class tonight, but it turned out ok. I'm glad I was in Charles' group; he already knew that I've been so ridiculously busy this week (I was talking to him about it yesterday after showing him how to put images into PowerPoint) and hadn't seen the stuff I did last week yet. So ok. Crisis averted.
And THANK GOD these applications are so almost due, because I am extremely ready to have them out of my hands and to have my life back. I realized that the 20 hours this week is in addition to 10 hours almost every other week of the semester thus far. This is ludicrous.
But everyone! Keep your fingers crossed! If all goes as planned, I will be at grad school in Scotland next year on someone else's dollar. I mean pound.
The plan for this weekend is to work work work, sleep sleep sleep, climb climb climb, and not worry about having a social life.
Jenn Henry!
I am most obviously procrastinating at the moment, but what better way to do so than by
emailing you? This is a good change from before -- I had been drawing little sketches of
beatniks in everyday situations. Beatnik mows the lawn. Beatnik cooks some soup.
Beatnik floats in the swimming pool. Beatniks are HILARIOUS when you start thinking
about them doing anything other than brooding, playing bongos, reciting poetry, snapping
their fingers in appreciation of poetry, drinking wine, and smoking cigarettes. I went
to a formal beatnik dinner party the other night, where all of those things happened
except for the cigarettes. We ate swanky vegetarian food, drank a lot of wine, acted
beat. Oh yeah, and we played the Ungame and 2 Truths and a Lie. Maybe that wasn't quite
so beat. And then I went to the Flogging Molly concert, still dressed all in black with
a beret and sunglasses. Best ever.
Here is what I am procrastinating on: my Marshall Scholarship personal statement. Dear
God, save me now. Really it is not so bad. Really it is almost even fun to write, when
I can get myself to do so. Mostly I have it (and anything else that involves
essay-writing) built up into my head to be this really monstrous thing, and plenty of bad
habits to support me putting it off as long as possible. This is my 2nd revision (read:
3rd draft) of said personal statement, and I'm running out of new and better ways to
express myself. And when I'm done with this one, I get to reorganize the whole thing
into a Fulbright project proposal. Yippee! I need to keep reminding myself that the
potential outcome (free grad school in Scotland for 2 years!) is worth far more than the
limited amount of emotional trauma that must be endured to get there.
Here are plans A through F for What I Will Be Doing With My Life Next Year, as listed the
other night on the white board by my bed:
PLAN A: Win a Marshall Scholarship. Study at Edinburgh College of Art.
PLAN B: Win a Fulbright Grant. Study at Edinburgh College of Art.
PLAN C: Win one of the 6 spots in the Whitman in China program. Teach English in China.
PLAN D: Join the Peace Corps.
PLAN E: Be a TA at SACI (my school in Italy).
PLAN F: Be an RD at Whitman. Stay here and postpone the real world for 2 more years.
These are important things to be thinking about and working towards, but GOD I just want
to be done with applications and live my life. Do my homework. Print diary-esque
postcards and mail them to strangers (this is the current path my thesis is taking). Run
my gallery. Play songs on the radio. Talk to my friends. Find someone to make out
with. Sleep.
Boys are frustrating and I don't understand them. This is a horribly generalizing
statement, but I think it is true (it is probably true of girls too, and if I were
interested in dating girls, I'm sure I would find them frustrating and impossible to
understand as well). All this really means is that nothing is happening at the moment,
but I wish it were.
It sounds like Morocco is full of new experiences. That's good. Try to stop having new
experiences like getting really sick thanks to Fesfood though. And keep telling me about
everything.
The procrastination must end, and it must end now. NOW!
Much much love,
Shelby
Since then:
Life has continued to be abnormally busy. I have spent more than 20 hours this week working on my Marshall and Fulbright applications. I went to bed at 6:30 Wednesday morning after having been up all night writing personal statements. The sun was coming up and Louise was already starting her day.
Here is a personal statement: I need to fucking sleep.
Scholarship applications have seemingly been taking precedence over everything else. Including sleep, thesis work, and emotional responsibility. I did literally ZERO work on my thesis between last Thursday and today, which made me quite nervous for class tonight, but it turned out ok. I'm glad I was in Charles' group; he already knew that I've been so ridiculously busy this week (I was talking to him about it yesterday after showing him how to put images into PowerPoint) and hadn't seen the stuff I did last week yet. So ok. Crisis averted.
And THANK GOD these applications are so almost due, because I am extremely ready to have them out of my hands and to have my life back. I realized that the 20 hours this week is in addition to 10 hours almost every other week of the semester thus far. This is ludicrous.
But everyone! Keep your fingers crossed! If all goes as planned, I will be at grad school in Scotland next year on someone else's dollar. I mean pound.
The plan for this weekend is to work work work, sleep sleep sleep, climb climb climb, and not worry about having a social life.