do haje
all last night i spent in the library; i left at 10:00 AM, took a shower, slept for 2 hrs and dreamt about finishing my drawings and the paper i'm writing about the migration/transfer of Slovak Roma into the Czecho-places during communism [this paper has been eating my life, i've been reading and translating reams and reams of legal documents in this awful, high flown, bureaucratic Czech that bears very little resemblance to my own stunted and ineloquent obecna cestina], except in my dream the two were conflated and i woke up planning the pictures i was supposed to draw of Roma being pushed around by communist officials. i shook myself out, finished the real drawings i was assigned, and brought my finished portfolio to the drawing studio, like we were instructed to. we weren't told what time we were supposed to bring them in, so i assumed the teacher would be by in the evening to pick them up or something like that. i was putting everything together and i found in a pile of my things the grade the instructor had given me for my portfolio which didn't even exist hitherto; she had already come by and already graded my non-portfolio.
aha, but what really shits me is not that, but the note that she left, which said that she was generous to give me a C and that the fact that i hadn't brought the portfolio by demonstrates a lack of respect for myself and for her, and that she wishes she could give me a grade to reflect my artistic talent, and good luck in the future.* so, of course, i had to run to write her an email, licking her shoes, explaining that i had brought the portfolio just as she had left and she never told us when to bring the portfolios anyway, and it isn't about respect or disrespect [and since i'd been going through material for my paper, my head is so full of nonsense unlubricated by sleep that as i write, the broken closed-captioning system in my brain is translating the letter into Czech], and i really enjoyed the class, and think it's really improved my drawing, blah blah, more boot-licking, and good luck for her future as well.
(*i don't want you to get the wrong idea, i am not a huge fan of J.D. Salinger and don't by any means wish to apply Catcher in the Rye to my own life, but it has always stuck in my head that Holden Caulfield says that saying "Good luck!" to someone as they're leaving is very morbid and a horrible thing to do.)
jesus fucking christ. i suppose i wouldn't have been so annoyed by this if it didn't come at a time that i'm becoming thoroughly fed up with the whole school business. i didn't really realize how intensely hierarchical academia is; it's essentially like the old medieval apprenticeships, becoming something of an adept or an initiate to a professor-guru. i really, really don't think i'm cut out for this sort of thing. i would probably make a much better journeyman. and then what's even more frustrating is as i grow to hate academia more and more, i'm getting more and more interested in cultural studies and more and more sure that social theory is my intellectual calling, and this is something that absolutely can't be pursued outside academia.*
it isn't that i don't like researching, or poring through books, or writing; i like it very, very much. but the whole structure of higher education is making me absolutely crazy. i am sick of evaluating and being evaluated, of "networking", of brownnosing, of titles. i'm sick of girls who insist on getting As in classes they hate. i'm sick of my knowledge counting for shit because i'm not slick enough to package myself the right way.
ultimately, this all comes from egoism, because deep within me there's the precocious little child who can't be shut up, who believes a priori that she is smarter than her friends, her parents, her teachers, and everyone else.
***
*this isn't entirely true, of course. obviously, cultural theory has zillions of applications in the Real World, and in some sort of perfectly-working real-world future i would be able to create culture my own damn self. at the risk of sounding juvenile, i could see myself working on magazines, or in a museum, or some place where i could package and interpret ideas the way i want them to be packaged and interpreted. and i dearly hope i end up in some place like this, but this isn't the sort of thing you sit around wishing.
aha, but what really shits me is not that, but the note that she left, which said that she was generous to give me a C and that the fact that i hadn't brought the portfolio by demonstrates a lack of respect for myself and for her, and that she wishes she could give me a grade to reflect my artistic talent, and good luck in the future.* so, of course, i had to run to write her an email, licking her shoes, explaining that i had brought the portfolio just as she had left and she never told us when to bring the portfolios anyway, and it isn't about respect or disrespect [and since i'd been going through material for my paper, my head is so full of nonsense unlubricated by sleep that as i write, the broken closed-captioning system in my brain is translating the letter into Czech], and i really enjoyed the class, and think it's really improved my drawing, blah blah, more boot-licking, and good luck for her future as well.
(*i don't want you to get the wrong idea, i am not a huge fan of J.D. Salinger and don't by any means wish to apply Catcher in the Rye to my own life, but it has always stuck in my head that Holden Caulfield says that saying "Good luck!" to someone as they're leaving is very morbid and a horrible thing to do.)
jesus fucking christ. i suppose i wouldn't have been so annoyed by this if it didn't come at a time that i'm becoming thoroughly fed up with the whole school business. i didn't really realize how intensely hierarchical academia is; it's essentially like the old medieval apprenticeships, becoming something of an adept or an initiate to a professor-guru. i really, really don't think i'm cut out for this sort of thing. i would probably make a much better journeyman. and then what's even more frustrating is as i grow to hate academia more and more, i'm getting more and more interested in cultural studies and more and more sure that social theory is my intellectual calling, and this is something that absolutely can't be pursued outside academia.*
it isn't that i don't like researching, or poring through books, or writing; i like it very, very much. but the whole structure of higher education is making me absolutely crazy. i am sick of evaluating and being evaluated, of "networking", of brownnosing, of titles. i'm sick of girls who insist on getting As in classes they hate. i'm sick of my knowledge counting for shit because i'm not slick enough to package myself the right way.
ultimately, this all comes from egoism, because deep within me there's the precocious little child who can't be shut up, who believes a priori that she is smarter than her friends, her parents, her teachers, and everyone else.
***
*this isn't entirely true, of course. obviously, cultural theory has zillions of applications in the Real World, and in some sort of perfectly-working real-world future i would be able to create culture my own damn self. at the risk of sounding juvenile, i could see myself working on magazines, or in a museum, or some place where i could package and interpret ideas the way i want them to be packaged and interpreted. and i dearly hope i end up in some place like this, but this isn't the sort of thing you sit around wishing.