My F'ing Brain!
That's actually a bad pun, of sorts, but no one but me would realize it before reading this, so it's a really bad pun.
I truly failed my first class tonight. And I failed intentionally. Not because I wanted to fail, or to prove a point or anything, but I had to fail for the sake of my mental health.
Last night in the ceramics class I'm taking with my cute girlfriend, I took the very easy final, and tried to quickly finish up the pieces that were somewhere near done (two of the 14 projects hadn't been started, the lid to one of the jars was really too wet to do anything with, and the others could be salvaged at that point). I'd started before the final, and had finished.. one, maybe two that just needed a little trimming. I'd just started another when our teacher announced to the class (I wasn't the only one working) that we needed to stop trimming our pieces because she'd already told people last week that they wouldn't be able to work that day, and so it wouldn't be fair. True enough. I really wouldn't have minded the deduction in points or lower grade, or whatever I would have gotten for about half of my pieces being only about half finished. The problem was that they weren't in any condition to be fired in the kiln yet, and the next semester doesn't start there for almost 2 months, and by then they'd all be too dry to work with. That is, if I'd have been able to get them home undamaged, which I wouldn't have been able to do. So at least 3, maybe 4, of the 12 projects that I had in some stage of completion would have either gone into the scrap-clay bag, or the trash. And the one piece that I'd been really excited about doing was kind of screwed up because I had to rush through the last part of it in the special lab they had open on Saturday, and I wasn't going to be able to do it the way I wanted to, either. I'd already been pretty disappointed about how things were going this semester. I couldn't go to class on 3 of the roughly 28 nights of class, and then near the end of the semester, when I knew exactly how far behind on my projects I was, the school decided to cancel their policy of allowing ceramics students to go in to other ceramics classes (space permitting) and sit in the back to catch up on their work. There was this (that had been bothering me for the past few weeks), a big disappointment with not being able to finish applying for a job I was hoping to get, serious worries about a friend of mine who's been in a lot of trouble lately, and another unpleasant issue that I won't go into just now... I had something of an unpleasant mood swing, and after cleaning up my wheel I walked out of the pot-luck party that we have at the end of each semester without eating anything, and wandered around the campus for a while. It was dark, cold, and I spent about the first half of the 15 to 20 minutes that I was gone looking for a big rock or something that I could use to break a couple of fingers on my left hand. After that I managed to pull myself together a bit, and talk myself out of the idea that I wanted to break some part of me, or find something to stab myself with... possibly in the eye. What can I say? It wasn't a good night. If Lauren hadn't been back at the class I would have just left all my stuff in the class (projects, tools, whatever) and walked home. Fortunately I couldn't leave her there to carry about 100 lbs of clay, several boxes of pottery, and several boxes of tools back to the car, alone, in the dark. So I calmed myself down and went back in. But I still wasn't up to showing the teacher all my stuff and getting back into how most of my stuff wasn't done, and even the stuff that was partly done wasn't what I wanted it to be. So I grabbed my stuff, got the pieces that could be made ready to put out to be fired as ready as I could get them (still not how I wanted them to be, and deffinately in no condition to be turned in), and put them outside on the shelf so they could be fired, and I can pick them up in February. I skipped the step of turning them in first. They'll still be fired, but I'm not going to get credit for having done them. I'll get about 5% credit for my final, and whatever percentage attendance counts for, for the days that I was there, and whatever credit I get for participating in the group critiques. All together, maybe 30%, tops. Well into F range.
At the end of the night, as our teacher was finishing up grading everyone's projects, she asked if she still needed to do mine, and I said no. She asked "So I've got all your stuff checked off?" and again I said no. She was about to start going over someone else's stuff right then, and didn't have time to chase after me then, but asked what happened, and I just said it was a long story, and continued cleaning up.
After she'd checked everyone's stuff off, she said something about wanting to see my pieces, and I told her that the one's that survived were in the kiln room. She went out there, and I went back to loading up the car (which was right in front of the kiln room). There probably 60 or 70 other pieces of greenware out there, and shelves of stuff waiting to be glazed (none of my stuff in that category, but she didn't know that), so it would have taken her all night to find my half a dozen pieces. She came out after a minute, and asked me if I'd like to come point my pieces out to her, and I said that I'd rather not. She's a nice lady, and said, rather concerned, that she'd have to fail me if I didn't turn anything in. Having already known that, I told her that something was going on, and it was more important to me that I not have to talk about my pieces than that I pass the class, and that if I came back next semester, I'd just take that section over. She said she didn't want to accept that, but she would, and hated to fail me, because she thinks of me as an A student. ...Well, I guess I usually do, too. Maybe that's part of why I was upset so much by not being able to finish so much of my work.
I think a lot of this was about feeling that I'd wasted my time, and energy on something that didn't come to pass, when there are so many other things that I should be doing, and am spending little if any time on. People keep asking me if I've finished my 3D animated short. I feel almost sick everytime some asks, because I haven't done more than a couple of hours work on it since at least August. I had an animation test I was supposed to complete for a job I had a line on, but the deadline passed (actually, I got another e-mail from them saying they've pushed the deadline back, and sending me a new test to do. I'm starting to really feel like this is a scam, and it's just someone trying to get a bunch of free work in the form of "tests", that are actually scenes from part of a larger project.
I don't know. I just really didn't need that right now. I don't even know if I'm going to bother doing the "animation test", and I was really excited about it when I first heard about the "job". I don't really know what to think about it, and I don't know if I want to spend nearly every waking moment for the next week busting my butt to churn this thing out, and then never hear from these guys again. I'm tired. Mentally and physically. And my knee is still swollen, and so far as they've told me, none of the doctors has any idea why.
My computer just decided to reboot, for no reason. Thank whoever came up with the Firefox "restore session" feature that I didn't just reach over there and stab myself in the back of the hand with a screwdriver. I really doubt I had it in me to write this out again.
I truly failed my first class tonight. And I failed intentionally. Not because I wanted to fail, or to prove a point or anything, but I had to fail for the sake of my mental health.
Last night in the ceramics class I'm taking with my cute girlfriend, I took the very easy final, and tried to quickly finish up the pieces that were somewhere near done (two of the 14 projects hadn't been started, the lid to one of the jars was really too wet to do anything with, and the others could be salvaged at that point). I'd started before the final, and had finished.. one, maybe two that just needed a little trimming. I'd just started another when our teacher announced to the class (I wasn't the only one working) that we needed to stop trimming our pieces because she'd already told people last week that they wouldn't be able to work that day, and so it wouldn't be fair. True enough. I really wouldn't have minded the deduction in points or lower grade, or whatever I would have gotten for about half of my pieces being only about half finished. The problem was that they weren't in any condition to be fired in the kiln yet, and the next semester doesn't start there for almost 2 months, and by then they'd all be too dry to work with. That is, if I'd have been able to get them home undamaged, which I wouldn't have been able to do. So at least 3, maybe 4, of the 12 projects that I had in some stage of completion would have either gone into the scrap-clay bag, or the trash. And the one piece that I'd been really excited about doing was kind of screwed up because I had to rush through the last part of it in the special lab they had open on Saturday, and I wasn't going to be able to do it the way I wanted to, either. I'd already been pretty disappointed about how things were going this semester. I couldn't go to class on 3 of the roughly 28 nights of class, and then near the end of the semester, when I knew exactly how far behind on my projects I was, the school decided to cancel their policy of allowing ceramics students to go in to other ceramics classes (space permitting) and sit in the back to catch up on their work. There was this (that had been bothering me for the past few weeks), a big disappointment with not being able to finish applying for a job I was hoping to get, serious worries about a friend of mine who's been in a lot of trouble lately, and another unpleasant issue that I won't go into just now... I had something of an unpleasant mood swing, and after cleaning up my wheel I walked out of the pot-luck party that we have at the end of each semester without eating anything, and wandered around the campus for a while. It was dark, cold, and I spent about the first half of the 15 to 20 minutes that I was gone looking for a big rock or something that I could use to break a couple of fingers on my left hand. After that I managed to pull myself together a bit, and talk myself out of the idea that I wanted to break some part of me, or find something to stab myself with... possibly in the eye. What can I say? It wasn't a good night. If Lauren hadn't been back at the class I would have just left all my stuff in the class (projects, tools, whatever) and walked home. Fortunately I couldn't leave her there to carry about 100 lbs of clay, several boxes of pottery, and several boxes of tools back to the car, alone, in the dark. So I calmed myself down and went back in. But I still wasn't up to showing the teacher all my stuff and getting back into how most of my stuff wasn't done, and even the stuff that was partly done wasn't what I wanted it to be. So I grabbed my stuff, got the pieces that could be made ready to put out to be fired as ready as I could get them (still not how I wanted them to be, and deffinately in no condition to be turned in), and put them outside on the shelf so they could be fired, and I can pick them up in February. I skipped the step of turning them in first. They'll still be fired, but I'm not going to get credit for having done them. I'll get about 5% credit for my final, and whatever percentage attendance counts for, for the days that I was there, and whatever credit I get for participating in the group critiques. All together, maybe 30%, tops. Well into F range.
At the end of the night, as our teacher was finishing up grading everyone's projects, she asked if she still needed to do mine, and I said no. She asked "So I've got all your stuff checked off?" and again I said no. She was about to start going over someone else's stuff right then, and didn't have time to chase after me then, but asked what happened, and I just said it was a long story, and continued cleaning up.
After she'd checked everyone's stuff off, she said something about wanting to see my pieces, and I told her that the one's that survived were in the kiln room. She went out there, and I went back to loading up the car (which was right in front of the kiln room). There probably 60 or 70 other pieces of greenware out there, and shelves of stuff waiting to be glazed (none of my stuff in that category, but she didn't know that), so it would have taken her all night to find my half a dozen pieces. She came out after a minute, and asked me if I'd like to come point my pieces out to her, and I said that I'd rather not. She's a nice lady, and said, rather concerned, that she'd have to fail me if I didn't turn anything in. Having already known that, I told her that something was going on, and it was more important to me that I not have to talk about my pieces than that I pass the class, and that if I came back next semester, I'd just take that section over. She said she didn't want to accept that, but she would, and hated to fail me, because she thinks of me as an A student. ...Well, I guess I usually do, too. Maybe that's part of why I was upset so much by not being able to finish so much of my work.
I think a lot of this was about feeling that I'd wasted my time, and energy on something that didn't come to pass, when there are so many other things that I should be doing, and am spending little if any time on. People keep asking me if I've finished my 3D animated short. I feel almost sick everytime some asks, because I haven't done more than a couple of hours work on it since at least August. I had an animation test I was supposed to complete for a job I had a line on, but the deadline passed (actually, I got another e-mail from them saying they've pushed the deadline back, and sending me a new test to do. I'm starting to really feel like this is a scam, and it's just someone trying to get a bunch of free work in the form of "tests", that are actually scenes from part of a larger project.
I don't know. I just really didn't need that right now. I don't even know if I'm going to bother doing the "animation test", and I was really excited about it when I first heard about the "job". I don't really know what to think about it, and I don't know if I want to spend nearly every waking moment for the next week busting my butt to churn this thing out, and then never hear from these guys again. I'm tired. Mentally and physically. And my knee is still swollen, and so far as they've told me, none of the doctors has any idea why.
My computer just decided to reboot, for no reason. Thank whoever came up with the Firefox "restore session" feature that I didn't just reach over there and stab myself in the back of the hand with a screwdriver. I really doubt I had it in me to write this out again.