Thursday, November 02, 2006

Being a student feeds my neuroses

School has been more intense than usual lately, requiring me to like, write papers and do research and read assignments and it has been, like, totally uncool. Yesterday was the first day in EIGHT days (not counting the weekends!) that I did not have to turn in/be tested on something that was a large percentage of my grade.

  • I applied to and was officially accepted into my degree program last week, which is exciting for me because this should have happened about...two years ago. Not because it was competitive and I had to continue to reapply; actually, I would say that because I felt confident that it would be No Problem, I continued to put it off just because I could. And I did, and everything worked out. So there you go: Put things off! Procrastinate! Your life will continue to be fabulous, aside from the ulcers you contract due to the stress of worrying!
  • I wrote that ridiculous post on Google, you know? And it was sort of embarrassing when I went back and realized that I'd written it and then POSTED it, because I am not very good at articulating the thousands of ideas going around in my head about any particular topic. Anyway, we had merely flirted with conversations about Google in these classes, but on Tuesday we spent an hour talking about its development and where it's headed and blah blah blah FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LOREN NO ONE CARES ABOUT A DAMN SEARCH ENGINE. (But if you're interested, I have these articles for you to read.)
  • I am taking three classes that require me to make a short film for the final project. I've learned a lot about good shots, lighting, and balancing sound but I'm afraid I'm no filmmaker. I have a sinking feeling that my film shooting skills are going to pan out like my photography skills, which is to say that I will spend too much time trying to get it right but to no avail. I often picture myself as a mother, standing on my front porch on the first day of school, adjusting lights and forcing my kid to skip out the door over and over again so I can get it just right. And then doing something idiodic like forgetting to actually take the child to school because I wanted to get to the computer and edit right away, but falling into a depression because I forgot to white balance.
  • I am taking a class about the structure of grammar right now, and I'm sort of hot and cold about it. Sometimes I derive great pleasure from analyzing the form and meaning of a sentence, and sometimes it seems tedious. Apparently, I only find it to be tedious in class, because in conversation I will often point out to people that they didn't quite mean what they said. A friend of mine spent a good five minutes discussing with me his observation of, "I am cowering at you!" and my reaction of, "you can't cower at someone," which is about, oh, I don't know FOUR MINUTES AND FIFTY-SEVEN SECONDS LONGER than any sane person should discuss the use of a preposition.
Well. That was impressive! I'm three for three in the paragraph-organized proof of insanity contest today.

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