don't tell me that it's over -- stand up, poor and tired, but more than this!
Okay, time to be up-front and realistic.
1. This has not been a good semester. It's not that I don't understand what I'm doing -- I'm in almost entirely 100-level courses! -- but that's the problem. I do understand, and I'm complacent, and I'm skipping class because when I sit in class I'm the one answering all the questions and doodling in the margins and feeling like I could be sleeping right now except that I haven't done this stuff in four years and I'm horribly rusty and I get to the test and realize that I've slept through or doodled through the information I have forgotten how to do and I beat my head against the desk because I know this it's just that the information isn't coming to me, and I can't call up my entire high school physics class in the five minutes before I walk into take the exam. It just doesn't work like that.
This is my promise to myself, and to all of you who have stood by me and supported me and cared so much even though you don't have to -- this is my promise: I will stop skipping classes, skipping homework, skipping assignments. I can't bring my physics grade up to an A -- my first test grade was a 64, there's no bringing that up all the way to a 90 -- but I can bring it up to a B, if I work for it. Same with my lab grade. The first half of the semester was all Cs -- an A isn't likely, but if I pull an A on everything from here on out, I can bring it up to a B. My Chemistry grade is a solid B, but there's two tests and half a semester of homework left: I can bring that up to an A. Chem lab is in the same situation. If I just do the work, I'll pull that grade up to an A. It's easy, it's practically instinct, it's by far the easiest class I'm taking this semester -- and it's absolutely integral to my major and, later, my degree. I must excel at Chemistry.
And I do! If I do the work.
I had to drop Microbial Origins, because it turns out that I simply couldn't handle the workload -- it was three-page, single-spaced essays due every Friday, requiring at least four references... and there was no actual class. The entire thing was "research on your own" and maybe if I had been in a stabler place this semester, I could have done it, but I'm not there and I didn't have the background I really needed -- I really, really should have had Molecular Biology, Organic Chemistry, and Genetics before taking that class -- and although the essays I did manage to write were stellar, with full marks, I was killing myself to do them and my mental state has just been too fragile to withstand that right now.
Of course, that dropped me to under full-time, so I had to pick up an eight-week course to bring me back up over 12 hours. All that was left was this "transfer success" class that I thought would be absolute bullshit, but... it actually seems like a good thing, weirdly enough. It's a lot of information about the services the university provides for the students, like the Career Center and the Writing Center and the Speaking Center, as well as a lot of help in putting together resumes and cover letters, which I need all the help I can get with doing, so... Also, I really like the teacher. She's crazy energetic, even at 9 AM, but it's actually kind of nice to have a teacher who's so enthusiastic and genuinely helpful about these things. She's obviously really passionate about this, and although I signed up for the class thinking it would be an easy A -- which it does, assuming, of course, that I do the work -- I think I'll actually learn a lot of useful information.
Finally, Oral Communication. Right now, I'm pulling a B, which is good considering how much I hate speech-giving and how I don't have the book. We'll see how I did on the test we took last week (for which I wrote a full three pages for the essay portion, so if I don't do well on it, I will legitimately cry) and if I can put together a couple of good speeches, I should be able to at least maintain that B, if not pull it up to an A.
2. Let's talk about those speeches, because the one I'm doing next is going to be something I think you guys can help me with. It's supposed to be persuasive, a Question of Fact or a Question of Value, and I want to do it on the trend towards weaker, more submissive heroines in fiction -- why this is happening, and what it means for the younger generation of girls who are growing up with these lackluster role models. I have a couple of examples of "weak" heroines -- and by weak, I don't necessarily mean "non-badass" but rather, the reactive, shallow, love-obsessed sort of heroine. Obviously, Bella Swann is the biggest one, but there were a few others I've heard about and need to research -- are there any others that come to mind? I'm torn on where Katniss Everdeen fits -- in some ways, she is reactive and somewhat shallow, but I do think that a lot of girls could do worse in a role model.
Also, Katara? She's far more assertive than Katniss and bends runs circles around Bella, but I was thinking about delving into the fandom portrayal of her, how the audience still views her in terms of her love interests, how in many ways, she's still defined by the men in the show, in spite of her ability to stand on her own as a character. Because I think that's a big, big deal -- how all of these female characters are defined by the men in the stories rather than by themselves, compared to, say, Kaylee or Buffy or Xena or Susan from Discworld or Death from the Sandman or Gemma from A Great and Terrible Beauty -- whose characters all stand on their own, regardless of the men. And although some of those do have love interests, their "love stories" are minor, minor parts of who they are.
I especially want to bring up Kaylee, because although I love me some Zoe Washburne (who is by far my favorite female character, ever) -- Kaylee is not an Action Girl. She doesn't kick ass, she gets frightened when there's a gun in her hand and freezes up when threatened -- and yet, she's still a strong, valuable character. She has something that she's good at, something that she brings to the table, and she does with a cheerful smile and a flower-print shirt, all without either compromising her femininity or becoming The Load -- although I think Zoe kicks so much ass, Zoe is a Bad Ass. She's a subversion of the typical bad ass character, dressed up in a leather vest and a lever-action, and she still is, to some degree, defined by her relationship with Wash. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because Zoe has enough characterization to work as half of a relationship, but... Kaylee's relationship with Simon is pretty cute and all, but it's not a major part of her character. Her relationship with River, on the other hand, I think is -- because she's an integral part of River's arc, her friendship and compassion are major players in River's movement from plot coupon to character. Not as much as Simon's, no, but I like the fact that Kaylee's compassion is such a major factor in her characterization.
She's a soft female character, physically weak, and unassuming -- and yet, she's a powerful, well-rounded character who works in a "man's" job as a mechanic, and is completely open and free about her sexuality without a hint of remorse. I honestly think that Kaylee is probably the best role model that Joss Whedon has ever created -- because while it's cool that we see the badasses and the science experiments and the supernatural crime-fighters, most girls aren't going to be kick-boxing. It's wonderful when they do, and I love seeing female characters who are allowed to kick ungodly amounts of ass, but it's also wonderful when a girl sticks it out in a male-dominated field and doesn't compromise herself or her personality to do it. When a girl can be openly sexual and openly enjoying sex and still not be treated like a slut or like she's lesser because of it -- when a girl can, on screen, say that she masturbates and it's not a bad thing. (I mean, sure, Mal makes a comment about it, but it's in the way that a brother would about hearing his sister masturbating -- it's not, "how dare you do such a thing," it's "aaaaaaugh I don't need to know thiiiiiiis.")
tl;dr: I love Kaylee! I want more characters like her!
Which brings me to the point: Where are the characters like Kaylee? What do young girls have now? Why are the female characters becoming more and more submissive, more and more "traditional" and less independent?
I want to bring in that art imitates life, and tie this into the recent "war on women" that's going on -- this trend is mirroring the reactive trend in reality, towards a more "traditional" woman. I haven't gotten on here and raged about it yet, and I'm going to try not to because I'm working with "not getting angry on the internet" but -- it's quickly becoming a bad thing for a woman to be openly sexual and openly independent and openly non-family-oriented, and art is mirroring that. Female characters have always been idealized (actually, most fictional characters are), and as the ideal changes, so do the female characters. Now, the ideal is a woman who wants to settle down and have kids, who refuses sex until marriage -- not because it's a personal choice, but because "I'm not that kind of girl" -- and who works in traditionally female jobs.
It's not that any of that is necessarily bad, in fiction or in reality -- hell, one of my personal role models, my aunt, is happily married, has three grown children, and works as a high school teacher... but that's not all she is. That's not all that defines her. She loves biology (like me), she's involved in theatre, she volunteers and she goes to Alaska on research trips and she's a voracious reader and she loves classic rock and she has a whole life that's about more than just her family. Yes, they are the most important people in her life, but she's not defined by them. Do you see where I'm going? It's becoming a thing now, that women must (again) be defined by their relationships and their children, and that's awful.
Girls need better than that. Girls need to be taught that it's okay to be non-traditional. It's okay to like girls rather than guys. It's okay to want sex. It's okay to not want sex. It's okay to want five children, and it's okay to want zero children. Girls need to be taught that their gender is not their most defining characteristic.
But in so much of fiction, it is the most defining characteristic of the lead females. They are female. Everything else is secondary.
I've gotten off-track. Let me try to consolidate this by main points:
1. Art imitates life. Fiction is showing a trend towards more submissive, weaker female characters who are defined by their love interests and their gender. This will involve showing the difference between female characters from a decade ago and female characters now, most likely Kaylee versus Bella.
2. This is bad for young girls who are just learning what it means to be a woman, when they're told that this is how they must be.
3. What should be done about this? Women pushing back, more women getting into creating fiction for girls, women taking action and becoming more confident? All of that starts with teaching young girls with stronger role models -- because what you learn as a child will last with you through the rest of your life, and by the time you're old enough to think for yourself, it's often too late to change these trends that were hammered into your head. It's like... I know, consciously, that it's all right to be a sexually active woman -- but I was taught so, so intensely as a child that it was wrong, I can't be comfortable in sexual situations. It's ingrained into me, and it's ingrained into so many girls now. And it's fine to turn down sex if you don't want it, but it's a whole other story if you want to have sex but can't get past your mother's voice saying slut every time you think about it.
3. I HAVE FEELINGS, YOU GUYS. I also haven't been writing much, or talking much, and it's all coming out.
4. I want to write. I want to be a scientist, too, and I will fight for my degree, but I also want to write. It finally clicked at some point last semester -- I want to grow up to be Michael Crichton. I want to be a scientist who writes science fiction that's as accurate as it can reasonably be. And I don't see the problem with this. I also think -- and this might run me into trouble later on -- that technical writing is bullshit. I mean, yes, there's a time and a place, and formality is definitely good for formal papers and conferences.
But I'm in the science building, waiting to be advised for summer and fall, and I'm trying to read these professional reports that are plastered all over the walls, about the research the department is doing. And I can pick out things that I recognize (and things that I will be able to recognize, when I've had the education) but it's all tied up in this incredibly dry, incredibly hard to read prose. You get one sentence in and even if you understand everything, your head starts to ache because it's written so blankly. It's written in the most stilted, formal language, with all of the technical jargon, and all I can think as I'm reading is this doesn't sound like anyone cares. There's no humanity in the writing.
Which to some degree is good, for science -- so much of science is about taking the human element out of it and trying to see how it works (to the point that, in our Physics reports, we're not allowed to even use the phrase "human error") -- but at the same time, it's bad. Because you're not writing these reports for the Gods of Science to read. You're trying to inform people, to tell them what cool thing you've learned, how you learned it, and why it may or may not be perfectly accurate.
And the first lesson you learn about teaching people -- way, way back, from the first teachers you learn from -- is that you have to connect to them. Yes, writing a paper for Anthropology is going to be far different than writing a dissertation about the genes associated with mental illness* -- but at the same time, many of the same things apply. You're not writing in a vacuum, and it's not about how smart you can sound, how many technical terms you can fit into one paragraph.
I want to apply my writing skills to the scientific field. That's one of the things I loved so much about Michael Crichton's work -- it's more or less accurate (with some artistic liberty, and some cases of Science Marches On) and it's explained. In terms that the layperson can understand. He's writing a novel, and he's teaching you at the same time, and it's wonderful. But it's like, in the professional world, you have to be as dense as possible. I'm trying to read these books for classes and I understand the material but it's so hard to focus on because -- even when I'm reading about something I'm passionately interested in -- it's written in such a way that it's boring.
I think that's one reason that so many people see science as boring. On the one hand, you have people who just aren't interested in it -- I get passionate about some topic around some of my friends and their eyes just glaze over because they're too nice to say "Sarah I don't care" -- but there are also kids who would find it fascinating if it was easier to get into. Think about it. To use an example, when I was in Zoology, I was absolutely fascinated because I love the animal world and want to know more about it, but the class was boring. There was a lot of terminology and a lot of rote memorization and it was boring, okay? To sit in lecture and go over what these terms mean and how these animals are related to each other and I love this stuff and I was tuning out half the time.
Compare that to an episode of Planet Earth. It's the same topic. It's about animals. But Planet Earth is fascinating -- because it's told with an audience in mind. It's not a professor standing up and reading from a screen, although I'm sure Sigourney Weaver was reading from a script. It's engaging, it's interesting, and it's someone talking to you, explaining it to you.
That's what science, as a field, needs. Engaging teachers, who are teaching you, doing more than talking about their research, who are writing their reports with a reader in mind.
I want to be that. I want to do that. And I think I have the tools. I'm a writer, I do it for fun, I do it because I go crazy if I don't, I do it because it helps me think and it helps me breathe -- and I can bring that to the table. It's something I, as a candidate for a future job, have that others in this field don't. But I'm concerned that the employers won't think of it that way because technical writing has always been dense, because I don't write like a scientist.
I don't even know the point I'm trying to make anymore. I'm at this weird place where I want to write and I want to be a scientist and I want to marry the two but I'm not sure anyone will let me -- and I'm not sure I have the confidence to say "damn them all" and do it anyway, or if I'm stellar enough to get away with it. You know, because only shooting stars break the mold? I don't know if I sparkle that much, or -- if I do -- if I have the confidence to let myself shine.
5. Now, to bring this all back up to point one -- having the confidence to shine starts with actually shining. In Chemistry Lab, if the TA is occupied, the other students turn to me for help, ask me what they should do -- I have to be someone deserving of that sort of faith. I have the skills, I have the intelligence. I just have to grow the work ethic.
So, back to my promise: I will grow the work ethic. It's past time for me to pull myself together, and it's... all of this that's been going on this semester, it feeds itself. I stop going to class because I don't care or I get arrogant or I get depressed, and then my grades falter and I continue to not go to class because I'm doing badly and I'm ashamed and I get even more depressed -- so changing that starts with not letting myself stop going to class. With stepping up and saying "that's not a good enough excuse, go to class." With pulling out the book and actually doing homework. With caring, and with acting like I care.
Because this 2.4 GPA bullshit that I'm pulling now? That is not going to cut it. Now, or ever. But it's not something that I can take a pill to fix or ask a therapist or psychiatrist to cure. It's not something anyone else can do for me. It's my responsibility to make my future what I want it to be.
"I'm feeling down today" isn't a good enough excuse. "I'm exhausted," "I hate myself," "I think I subconsciously want to fail," "I'm depressed," "It's too nice out to be in class," "I'm in too good a mood to bother with class"... These aren't good excuses. They feel like it at the time, when it feels like getting out of bed is too much work -- and there are days when it really is, and when I really just can't do it... but those days have ruled this semester, and I'm paying the price with my GPA.
Yeah, there will be bad days, and yeah, I need to plan for them and set time aside for "sanity days" -- but I can't keep coming up with these shitty excuses for my laziness, because the lazier I am, the more depressed I become, and the more I circle toward that awful black hole that was 2010, and I've said before that I cannot go back to that place.
But healing, getting better, getting out of my head, getting away from that event horizon -- that's something only I can do for myself.
And all of it, all of this post, all of myself, all of my future, all of it, starts right here, right at the center of everything, my issues, my problems: I need to learn to love myself.
It's hard. I deal with self-loathing constantly, and there's a part of me -- that's bigger than I want to admit, bigger than I want it to be -- who still kind of thinks that I can take a pill that will give me self-worth. It doesn't work like that. In order to have self-worth, I must be someone who is worth something.
Which I am. I am. I am, I am, I am, I am. I'm intelligent and I'm an excellent writer and I care about people and I love the world and I want to change the world for the better and I am not worthless.
And I can show myself that I'm not worthless, by pulling my grades up, by doing the work and doing it right, by shaking up the stagnant place my mind has tricked me into. The best feeling ever, I remember this, this awesome moment -- the most accomplished I've probably ever felt -- was getting my first Zoology test back. Because that test was so hard, and so long, and involved so much effort -- but I did the work, I studied hard, and it paid off when I made over a hundred, on a test with an average grade in the sixties. It was proof of concept, that I could bounce back from that awful year, that I still had it.
This semester has been killing that little bubble of confidence, that part of me that says "Sarah you're better than this, you can do this, you know you can" -- it gets drowned out by the chorus of "you're not that great, you're not that smart, you're not good at this," which only gets louder the more I give into it. I can't give into it.
Which starts here. A long time ago, now, there was a fandomsecret about P!nk's song "Fucking Perfect" and how the anon wanted to feel it but couldn't, and I was able, then, to say that you can't get your self-worth from a song, it starts within, and you can work on self-worth by picking up little accomplishments to prove to yourself that you have value and can make something happen -- why can't I listen to my own advice?
Well, I'm listening to my own advice this time.
Why did that get so long.
1. This has not been a good semester. It's not that I don't understand what I'm doing -- I'm in almost entirely 100-level courses! -- but that's the problem. I do understand, and I'm complacent, and I'm skipping class because when I sit in class I'm the one answering all the questions and doodling in the margins and feeling like I could be sleeping right now except that I haven't done this stuff in four years and I'm horribly rusty and I get to the test and realize that I've slept through or doodled through the information I have forgotten how to do and I beat my head against the desk because I know this it's just that the information isn't coming to me, and I can't call up my entire high school physics class in the five minutes before I walk into take the exam. It just doesn't work like that.
This is my promise to myself, and to all of you who have stood by me and supported me and cared so much even though you don't have to -- this is my promise: I will stop skipping classes, skipping homework, skipping assignments. I can't bring my physics grade up to an A -- my first test grade was a 64, there's no bringing that up all the way to a 90 -- but I can bring it up to a B, if I work for it. Same with my lab grade. The first half of the semester was all Cs -- an A isn't likely, but if I pull an A on everything from here on out, I can bring it up to a B. My Chemistry grade is a solid B, but there's two tests and half a semester of homework left: I can bring that up to an A. Chem lab is in the same situation. If I just do the work, I'll pull that grade up to an A. It's easy, it's practically instinct, it's by far the easiest class I'm taking this semester -- and it's absolutely integral to my major and, later, my degree. I must excel at Chemistry.
And I do! If I do the work.
I had to drop Microbial Origins, because it turns out that I simply couldn't handle the workload -- it was three-page, single-spaced essays due every Friday, requiring at least four references... and there was no actual class. The entire thing was "research on your own" and maybe if I had been in a stabler place this semester, I could have done it, but I'm not there and I didn't have the background I really needed -- I really, really should have had Molecular Biology, Organic Chemistry, and Genetics before taking that class -- and although the essays I did manage to write were stellar, with full marks, I was killing myself to do them and my mental state has just been too fragile to withstand that right now.
Of course, that dropped me to under full-time, so I had to pick up an eight-week course to bring me back up over 12 hours. All that was left was this "transfer success" class that I thought would be absolute bullshit, but... it actually seems like a good thing, weirdly enough. It's a lot of information about the services the university provides for the students, like the Career Center and the Writing Center and the Speaking Center, as well as a lot of help in putting together resumes and cover letters, which I need all the help I can get with doing, so... Also, I really like the teacher. She's crazy energetic, even at 9 AM, but it's actually kind of nice to have a teacher who's so enthusiastic and genuinely helpful about these things. She's obviously really passionate about this, and although I signed up for the class thinking it would be an easy A -- which it does, assuming, of course, that I do the work -- I think I'll actually learn a lot of useful information.
Finally, Oral Communication. Right now, I'm pulling a B, which is good considering how much I hate speech-giving and how I don't have the book. We'll see how I did on the test we took last week (for which I wrote a full three pages for the essay portion, so if I don't do well on it, I will legitimately cry) and if I can put together a couple of good speeches, I should be able to at least maintain that B, if not pull it up to an A.
2. Let's talk about those speeches, because the one I'm doing next is going to be something I think you guys can help me with. It's supposed to be persuasive, a Question of Fact or a Question of Value, and I want to do it on the trend towards weaker, more submissive heroines in fiction -- why this is happening, and what it means for the younger generation of girls who are growing up with these lackluster role models. I have a couple of examples of "weak" heroines -- and by weak, I don't necessarily mean "non-badass" but rather, the reactive, shallow, love-obsessed sort of heroine. Obviously, Bella Swann is the biggest one, but there were a few others I've heard about and need to research -- are there any others that come to mind? I'm torn on where Katniss Everdeen fits -- in some ways, she is reactive and somewhat shallow, but I do think that a lot of girls could do worse in a role model.
Also, Katara? She's far more assertive than Katniss and bends runs circles around Bella, but I was thinking about delving into the fandom portrayal of her, how the audience still views her in terms of her love interests, how in many ways, she's still defined by the men in the show, in spite of her ability to stand on her own as a character. Because I think that's a big, big deal -- how all of these female characters are defined by the men in the stories rather than by themselves, compared to, say, Kaylee or Buffy or Xena or Susan from Discworld or Death from the Sandman or Gemma from A Great and Terrible Beauty -- whose characters all stand on their own, regardless of the men. And although some of those do have love interests, their "love stories" are minor, minor parts of who they are.
I especially want to bring up Kaylee, because although I love me some Zoe Washburne (who is by far my favorite female character, ever) -- Kaylee is not an Action Girl. She doesn't kick ass, she gets frightened when there's a gun in her hand and freezes up when threatened -- and yet, she's still a strong, valuable character. She has something that she's good at, something that she brings to the table, and she does with a cheerful smile and a flower-print shirt, all without either compromising her femininity or becoming The Load -- although I think Zoe kicks so much ass, Zoe is a Bad Ass. She's a subversion of the typical bad ass character, dressed up in a leather vest and a lever-action, and she still is, to some degree, defined by her relationship with Wash. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because Zoe has enough characterization to work as half of a relationship, but... Kaylee's relationship with Simon is pretty cute and all, but it's not a major part of her character. Her relationship with River, on the other hand, I think is -- because she's an integral part of River's arc, her friendship and compassion are major players in River's movement from plot coupon to character. Not as much as Simon's, no, but I like the fact that Kaylee's compassion is such a major factor in her characterization.
She's a soft female character, physically weak, and unassuming -- and yet, she's a powerful, well-rounded character who works in a "man's" job as a mechanic, and is completely open and free about her sexuality without a hint of remorse. I honestly think that Kaylee is probably the best role model that Joss Whedon has ever created -- because while it's cool that we see the badasses and the science experiments and the supernatural crime-fighters, most girls aren't going to be kick-boxing. It's wonderful when they do, and I love seeing female characters who are allowed to kick ungodly amounts of ass, but it's also wonderful when a girl sticks it out in a male-dominated field and doesn't compromise herself or her personality to do it. When a girl can be openly sexual and openly enjoying sex and still not be treated like a slut or like she's lesser because of it -- when a girl can, on screen, say that she masturbates and it's not a bad thing. (I mean, sure, Mal makes a comment about it, but it's in the way that a brother would about hearing his sister masturbating -- it's not, "how dare you do such a thing," it's "aaaaaaugh I don't need to know thiiiiiiis.")
tl;dr: I love Kaylee! I want more characters like her!
Which brings me to the point: Where are the characters like Kaylee? What do young girls have now? Why are the female characters becoming more and more submissive, more and more "traditional" and less independent?
I want to bring in that art imitates life, and tie this into the recent "war on women" that's going on -- this trend is mirroring the reactive trend in reality, towards a more "traditional" woman. I haven't gotten on here and raged about it yet, and I'm going to try not to because I'm working with "not getting angry on the internet" but -- it's quickly becoming a bad thing for a woman to be openly sexual and openly independent and openly non-family-oriented, and art is mirroring that. Female characters have always been idealized (actually, most fictional characters are), and as the ideal changes, so do the female characters. Now, the ideal is a woman who wants to settle down and have kids, who refuses sex until marriage -- not because it's a personal choice, but because "I'm not that kind of girl" -- and who works in traditionally female jobs.
It's not that any of that is necessarily bad, in fiction or in reality -- hell, one of my personal role models, my aunt, is happily married, has three grown children, and works as a high school teacher... but that's not all she is. That's not all that defines her. She loves biology (like me), she's involved in theatre, she volunteers and she goes to Alaska on research trips and she's a voracious reader and she loves classic rock and she has a whole life that's about more than just her family. Yes, they are the most important people in her life, but she's not defined by them. Do you see where I'm going? It's becoming a thing now, that women must (again) be defined by their relationships and their children, and that's awful.
Girls need better than that. Girls need to be taught that it's okay to be non-traditional. It's okay to like girls rather than guys. It's okay to want sex. It's okay to not want sex. It's okay to want five children, and it's okay to want zero children. Girls need to be taught that their gender is not their most defining characteristic.
But in so much of fiction, it is the most defining characteristic of the lead females. They are female. Everything else is secondary.
I've gotten off-track. Let me try to consolidate this by main points:
1. Art imitates life. Fiction is showing a trend towards more submissive, weaker female characters who are defined by their love interests and their gender. This will involve showing the difference between female characters from a decade ago and female characters now, most likely Kaylee versus Bella.
2. This is bad for young girls who are just learning what it means to be a woman, when they're told that this is how they must be.
3. What should be done about this? Women pushing back, more women getting into creating fiction for girls, women taking action and becoming more confident? All of that starts with teaching young girls with stronger role models -- because what you learn as a child will last with you through the rest of your life, and by the time you're old enough to think for yourself, it's often too late to change these trends that were hammered into your head. It's like... I know, consciously, that it's all right to be a sexually active woman -- but I was taught so, so intensely as a child that it was wrong, I can't be comfortable in sexual situations. It's ingrained into me, and it's ingrained into so many girls now. And it's fine to turn down sex if you don't want it, but it's a whole other story if you want to have sex but can't get past your mother's voice saying slut every time you think about it.
3. I HAVE FEELINGS, YOU GUYS. I also haven't been writing much, or talking much, and it's all coming out.
4. I want to write. I want to be a scientist, too, and I will fight for my degree, but I also want to write. It finally clicked at some point last semester -- I want to grow up to be Michael Crichton. I want to be a scientist who writes science fiction that's as accurate as it can reasonably be. And I don't see the problem with this. I also think -- and this might run me into trouble later on -- that technical writing is bullshit. I mean, yes, there's a time and a place, and formality is definitely good for formal papers and conferences.
But I'm in the science building, waiting to be advised for summer and fall, and I'm trying to read these professional reports that are plastered all over the walls, about the research the department is doing. And I can pick out things that I recognize (and things that I will be able to recognize, when I've had the education) but it's all tied up in this incredibly dry, incredibly hard to read prose. You get one sentence in and even if you understand everything, your head starts to ache because it's written so blankly. It's written in the most stilted, formal language, with all of the technical jargon, and all I can think as I'm reading is this doesn't sound like anyone cares. There's no humanity in the writing.
Which to some degree is good, for science -- so much of science is about taking the human element out of it and trying to see how it works (to the point that, in our Physics reports, we're not allowed to even use the phrase "human error") -- but at the same time, it's bad. Because you're not writing these reports for the Gods of Science to read. You're trying to inform people, to tell them what cool thing you've learned, how you learned it, and why it may or may not be perfectly accurate.
And the first lesson you learn about teaching people -- way, way back, from the first teachers you learn from -- is that you have to connect to them. Yes, writing a paper for Anthropology is going to be far different than writing a dissertation about the genes associated with mental illness* -- but at the same time, many of the same things apply. You're not writing in a vacuum, and it's not about how smart you can sound, how many technical terms you can fit into one paragraph.
I want to apply my writing skills to the scientific field. That's one of the things I loved so much about Michael Crichton's work -- it's more or less accurate (with some artistic liberty, and some cases of Science Marches On) and it's explained. In terms that the layperson can understand. He's writing a novel, and he's teaching you at the same time, and it's wonderful. But it's like, in the professional world, you have to be as dense as possible. I'm trying to read these books for classes and I understand the material but it's so hard to focus on because -- even when I'm reading about something I'm passionately interested in -- it's written in such a way that it's boring.
I think that's one reason that so many people see science as boring. On the one hand, you have people who just aren't interested in it -- I get passionate about some topic around some of my friends and their eyes just glaze over because they're too nice to say "Sarah I don't care" -- but there are also kids who would find it fascinating if it was easier to get into. Think about it. To use an example, when I was in Zoology, I was absolutely fascinated because I love the animal world and want to know more about it, but the class was boring. There was a lot of terminology and a lot of rote memorization and it was boring, okay? To sit in lecture and go over what these terms mean and how these animals are related to each other and I love this stuff and I was tuning out half the time.
Compare that to an episode of Planet Earth. It's the same topic. It's about animals. But Planet Earth is fascinating -- because it's told with an audience in mind. It's not a professor standing up and reading from a screen, although I'm sure Sigourney Weaver was reading from a script. It's engaging, it's interesting, and it's someone talking to you, explaining it to you.
That's what science, as a field, needs. Engaging teachers, who are teaching you, doing more than talking about their research, who are writing their reports with a reader in mind.
I want to be that. I want to do that. And I think I have the tools. I'm a writer, I do it for fun, I do it because I go crazy if I don't, I do it because it helps me think and it helps me breathe -- and I can bring that to the table. It's something I, as a candidate for a future job, have that others in this field don't. But I'm concerned that the employers won't think of it that way because technical writing has always been dense, because I don't write like a scientist.
I don't even know the point I'm trying to make anymore. I'm at this weird place where I want to write and I want to be a scientist and I want to marry the two but I'm not sure anyone will let me -- and I'm not sure I have the confidence to say "damn them all" and do it anyway, or if I'm stellar enough to get away with it. You know, because only shooting stars break the mold? I don't know if I sparkle that much, or -- if I do -- if I have the confidence to let myself shine.
5. Now, to bring this all back up to point one -- having the confidence to shine starts with actually shining. In Chemistry Lab, if the TA is occupied, the other students turn to me for help, ask me what they should do -- I have to be someone deserving of that sort of faith. I have the skills, I have the intelligence. I just have to grow the work ethic.
So, back to my promise: I will grow the work ethic. It's past time for me to pull myself together, and it's... all of this that's been going on this semester, it feeds itself. I stop going to class because I don't care or I get arrogant or I get depressed, and then my grades falter and I continue to not go to class because I'm doing badly and I'm ashamed and I get even more depressed -- so changing that starts with not letting myself stop going to class. With stepping up and saying "that's not a good enough excuse, go to class." With pulling out the book and actually doing homework. With caring, and with acting like I care.
Because this 2.4 GPA bullshit that I'm pulling now? That is not going to cut it. Now, or ever. But it's not something that I can take a pill to fix or ask a therapist or psychiatrist to cure. It's not something anyone else can do for me. It's my responsibility to make my future what I want it to be.
"I'm feeling down today" isn't a good enough excuse. "I'm exhausted," "I hate myself," "I think I subconsciously want to fail," "I'm depressed," "It's too nice out to be in class," "I'm in too good a mood to bother with class"... These aren't good excuses. They feel like it at the time, when it feels like getting out of bed is too much work -- and there are days when it really is, and when I really just can't do it... but those days have ruled this semester, and I'm paying the price with my GPA.
Yeah, there will be bad days, and yeah, I need to plan for them and set time aside for "sanity days" -- but I can't keep coming up with these shitty excuses for my laziness, because the lazier I am, the more depressed I become, and the more I circle toward that awful black hole that was 2010, and I've said before that I cannot go back to that place.
But healing, getting better, getting out of my head, getting away from that event horizon -- that's something only I can do for myself.
And all of it, all of this post, all of myself, all of my future, all of it, starts right here, right at the center of everything, my issues, my problems: I need to learn to love myself.
It's hard. I deal with self-loathing constantly, and there's a part of me -- that's bigger than I want to admit, bigger than I want it to be -- who still kind of thinks that I can take a pill that will give me self-worth. It doesn't work like that. In order to have self-worth, I must be someone who is worth something.
Which I am. I am. I am, I am, I am, I am. I'm intelligent and I'm an excellent writer and I care about people and I love the world and I want to change the world for the better and I am not worthless.
And I can show myself that I'm not worthless, by pulling my grades up, by doing the work and doing it right, by shaking up the stagnant place my mind has tricked me into. The best feeling ever, I remember this, this awesome moment -- the most accomplished I've probably ever felt -- was getting my first Zoology test back. Because that test was so hard, and so long, and involved so much effort -- but I did the work, I studied hard, and it paid off when I made over a hundred, on a test with an average grade in the sixties. It was proof of concept, that I could bounce back from that awful year, that I still had it.
This semester has been killing that little bubble of confidence, that part of me that says "Sarah you're better than this, you can do this, you know you can" -- it gets drowned out by the chorus of "you're not that great, you're not that smart, you're not good at this," which only gets louder the more I give into it. I can't give into it.
Which starts here. A long time ago, now, there was a fandomsecret about P!nk's song "Fucking Perfect" and how the anon wanted to feel it but couldn't, and I was able, then, to say that you can't get your self-worth from a song, it starts within, and you can work on self-worth by picking up little accomplishments to prove to yourself that you have value and can make something happen -- why can't I listen to my own advice?
Well, I'm listening to my own advice this time.
Why did that get so long.