So here I sit, headachey and braindead, attempting to work. It’s like watching your life on extreme close-up all the time — complete lack of ability to see the big picture, and very frustrating. And it makes me whiny. But I’m pleased that the week’s nearly over. And panicked for the same reason, given all that I meant to have accomplished by tomorrow. I don’t know why (well, yes I do know why, it’s called HUGE FUCKING PILES OF LOANS!!) I’m always so afraid to waste a single second of time here, but my time-to-accomplishments radio this week has been especially wonky. It may be that most classes have slowed their “homework” assignments in favor of long-term project toiling, but I still feel like I haven’t done anything. Learned anything. Gutted anything. Etc. Meh, some days you feel like taking over the world, others you feel like it’s taking you over. This has been a week of the latter.
I was talking with Eugene last week (attempting to belay a persistent hangover by helping her install WordPress on her site), and she very wisely commented that she was so happy she’d come here and embraced the “open your mind to new possibilites” theory of ITP, but in doing so, had completely lost sight of what she used to be good at, which I’ve TOTALLY done the past two months. I’m so happy to be involved in all these things I’d never have thought I’d even like mere months ago, and it’s opened my horizons exponentially, but I’ve also let go of what I used to consider my core competencies, leaving me in this really creeped-out state of feeling useless half/most of the time. I’ve found myself moping around that I suck at coding, completely forgetting that I can actually write and play music and do other stuff quite well. Perhaps the point of the first semester is merely to strike a balance between acceptance, pride and education, preparing us for the rest of the ITP mind-splat.
This also fits into a tale Adam told a while back (while helping me solder well into the night), shared from a PhD candidate friend of his, who said that the point of grad school is to make you humble. Not humble as in lack of pride, but humble as to say that all the people you hold as heroes and geniuses aren’t necessarily any smarter or better off than you — they just work really, really, really hard.
Words to ponder…
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