see my way
02.20.03 @ 4:58 p.m.
Fucking diaryland. I wrote a really long entry, oh, probably three hours ago but it vanished into the ether. And it was really articulate, too. I hate that. The worst things happen to the best entries, but it goes with the tone of my day.
First, I was picked to summarize the plot of Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath." I fucked it up. The very very small bright side to this is that I wasn't nearly so embarassed or upset by it as I would have thought. I lived through what is normally crippling humiliation (I'm easily embarassed) with hardly a blush. In a class of 150. In front of Who Boy, who wore a really cool shirt today and managed to be very articulate about subliminal messages in Judas Priest songs.
The real horror of the day is that I've done something now that I've never done before. I failed a midterm. I've never bombed a really important test. If I had known that when the instructor said "There were 3 As, 13 Bs, 5 Cs, 2... uh, a D and a special circumstance" that I was the special circumstance, I wouldn't have been half so composed. But I was. I missed the essay question, which was half the test. I didn't see it, it was on the other side of the paper. If I'd known, I'd have taken better care of my time. But I didn't see it. My GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellow) was very understanding, though it irritated me that he kept telling me I shouldn't panic. I'm not the panicking type. I might be the wallowing in humiliation type, but not the panicking type. He kind of ameliorated it by saying he was disappointed because he really liked my assigned essay and wanted to read more of my writing. Very possibly mindless flattery, but I can easily see it as sincere, too. I think I would be a very different person if I didn't write so well. Probably more responsible, but when even your most half-assed efforts earn praise from teachers, you don't put a lot of work into anything. I kind of wish that I hadn't learned early on that I can get away with almost anything with very little work on my part.
The funny thing about all this is that it doesn't bother me that much. I'm amazed at how I'm taking this thing in stride. I think that the only way it's going to upset me is if I make a conscious choice to make an issue of it. I think I can recover by actually considering my next paper before the night before it's due. Plus there's the final. I won't go down in University history or anything, but I'll probably pass.
I don't know why I think that maybe I should have been upset. I nearly failed chemistry in high school through my own sheer unwillingness to deal with school outside of school. I never did homework. I also very nearly failed World Geography for similar reasons. I never pitied my teachers before now, after Mom gave me a bit of a guilt trip about how it was students like me that sent my fourth grade teacher to leave teaching for a couple of years.
In all fairness, I don't think there was any possible way for him to get through to me. It probably embarassed the hell out of my parents, but it never bothered me. And now that I'm in college and am not often subjected to meaningless busywork, I get As and Bs. I do have a problem keeping up with my reading due to lazyness. I need to catch up on my Rock History reading, which I did religiously until very recently. I need to bring up my grades there, too, just for the fact that I love that class and the idea of not doing well bothers me. I'd do so well if I weren't so negligent of my work.
Maybe I am arrogant after all.
I mean, I totally disregard studying because I'm, well, smart. I was smarter than everybody until about high school, and even then I whupped ass on the SATs and other tests. E* far outshines me in math and philosophy (though one Naomi Zack has engendered an intense dislike of anything philosophical in me), and yet she has a certain amount of naivete that makes me feel superior and condescending, though often I'm just frustrated with her. I don't know what it is, just a philosophy major's mindset or something else. Sometimes she asks me if I think she's stupid. I don't, just incredibly naive and often ignorant of western culture or American cultural knowledge.
Guh. I think I'm going to go to the Rec and spend a half hour on a stationary bike with Mama Lola: A Voodoo Priestess in Brooklyn, which is my assigned Anthropology reading... for tomorrow. I've read, oh, three chapters. I have like, ten left. Cripes. It's interesting though. I regret not keeping up with the reading. I also need to look at the history paper topics to start redeeming my massive plummet from grace. Shit.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
