OK, so there's nothing triumphant exactly about simply continuing to exist, but with a single turn of the calendar to Monday morning I have gone from almost depressingly idle (not to say I don't love video games, but...) to a renewed sense of purpose.
Some highlights from Day 1 of spring semester:
- I broke a record for "fastest time to a teacher saying 'Class Dismissed...not so fast there, Fox.' My Core Humanities 203 (US History) professor, the same teacher I had for CH202 (Modern European History) last semester, wanted to talk about my work on the final exam, a 4,000-word magnum opus I turned in on the last day of class. He became the I-lost-count-how-many person to tell me that "you're in the wrong major, you should be a writer." Said I: "I'm not smart enough to write for a living, and majoring in the humanities and taking classes beyond these simple core-overview classes would only out me as an ignorant fool who's way out of his depth trying to operate on the same level as real intellectuals. For all my so-called talent at writing, I'm actually much better at accounting and finance." The professor's response was to fire back at me claiming intellectual laziness on my part. That's as may be, but I still contend I am not that sharp, merely a fortunate beneficiary of having my extremely limited intellect be well-suited to the tasks I ask of it. Call me a genius or any other sort of compliment in that vein and I'm likely to think you've got me confused for someone else.
- Answering the question of "what did you do over winter break" leads to interesting replies when the bulk of it is "trimmed some financial deadweight from my life and finalized my divorce." At least people laughed when I told the story!
- I'm beginning to think that the bulk of the accomplishments I ring up to my name on these day-night doubleheader days on Mondays and Wednesdays will primarily be via the video games I've got installed on this laptop...at least when I don't have a paper to write. This being the introductory phase of all six of my classes, it becomes quite clear that having three hours to kill every other day will be an up-and-down experience.
- I took one look at the syllabus for SOC 205, including the requirements outlined in the research paper assignment (due later this semester), and my first thought was "Oh, shit." If I get anything better than a B-minus in that class I will be thrilled. My chances of maintaining a 4.0 just bade me farewell and hopped on a bus out of town.
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Actually, I think you grossly misstated your intelligence when it comes to being a writer. You are TOO intelligent to be one-- I can tell you this since I do more or less write for a living. I would also say that your choice to not major in the humanities is yet more evidence of this said intelligence, as most people avoid such majors precisely so everyone they know doesn't ask, "What can you do with THAT?" I, unfortunately, lack the daredevil outlook required to be a freelance writer-- also the unremitting drive to push myself out there. I also lack an understanding of people to write fiction and characters. Nor would I have the foggiest what to write about. Where does that leave such a writer? In grant writing. Would that were the end of it: 1/2 of such work is being a social butterfly & outgoing puppy. Which suits me about as much as abstinence suited Bristol Palin.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, you should shoot me an email (monsterdog_5 at msn dot com). That way I can ask you all kinds of fun questions burning a hole in my brain without the readership playing gawker to the conversation.
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