Inspiration from unexpected quarters
I just had literally the most amazing conversation with my Sociology professor. I've been having issues with school and depression and stress and anxiety for many years - the last 5 years of my undergrad, actually. I'm utterly incompetent at time management and I live in terror of being criticized or of not doing well, to the point where I will simply not hand in an assignment (as in, not start, not finish, not hand in) rather than fail. There's a paradox in my head that tells me that bombing something with a zero is better than being mediocre or inferior rather than just handing the motherfucker in and getting a grade that will allow me to pass the course. I've been talking things over with my therapist, who is a lovely young woman who has that disturbing trick of listening to me SO INTENTLY that I tell her things I've buried in my psyche, events that turn out to be genuinely abnormal and wrong now that I have some adult perspective. Things that influence who I am and how I think about myself, and how I act. So, back to the point.
I had a 12 page paper that I needed to submit on Turnitin.com and a hard copy to my professor due yesterday. I could not do it. I also had a 12-minute presentation on the same topic to do that I had put off from its due date, March 25th, to the last day of class, again, yesterday. Professor T had emailed me on Sunday, asking why I had not yet presented, so I emailed him back on Tuesday (very late) that I would present the next day. Me being me, I prepared it yesterday in the hours before and during class, thus not presenting on Wednesday as I had said. I finished it this morning, and I was going to present it to my prof today since in his original email he said that the leftover people who had also not presented would do so on Thursday. I didn't show up to class on Wednesday (still working on that presentation and despairing of the paper, dammit) so I showed up today at the location only to find that nobody was there. Panic! I'm resigned to mediocrity in this class, but I thought I needed the presentation to boost my mark just enough to pass - I'd done more than passing well on two tests, participation grades, and with a boost on attendance I could make the magic 50%. Turns out that even without the presentation I did make 50%, and since he gave me a 90% on it it brings my grade up to a 63% (without the final paper? 80%).
So. I called him, found out he was in his office, and went in to beg for the chance to present my Powerpoint slides; I mean, might as well do it, right? It was done. But before we did that he spoke to me about why it was that I wasn't going to hand in my paper. It was a good thing I'd covered some of this with my therapist - instead of confusion and apathy I actually had some insight into my own motivations enough to say that it was my own fault. I owned the error, the pathetic inability to write anything, my completely irrational fear of research papers, and the fact that writing essays on the fly had become my signature. Now, let me lay something out. I can and have written 10 page papers in less than 24 hours, and despite the fact that every paper I write I claim is "the worst ever" I can achieve 70s, 80s. B's and A's, basically. But when there is a confluence of papers, as in, every year twice a year around exam time, I panic and can do NOTHING. So I told him all of this and he told me that he had been surprised and disappointed by my absence on Wednesday, since he thought that mine was an opinion worth listening to. I contribute in class because I think it's interesting, because I can synthesize information (in the verbal forum) and make connections. His perception of me was that I'm smart, and that I have something to offer the class - the world!
He told me that I was intelligent, and that I write last minute papers because I'm coasting. He said that I'm bright enough to belong to "that elite club that has something to offer the world, that can give insight that will change things for the better," and that if I kept defining myself by my mother's outrageously unfair standards I would only keep coming up short in my head and failing to complete things, failing to COMPETE, because I'd psych myself out. We talked about academia being a game with strict rules, that the world was a messier place where you can find just about any niche because they exist, you just have to find them. We talked about how my procrastination was a mechanism to cope with guilt over not doing things to (my mother's) standards, as well as my own.
He asked me the pivotal question: If I had the chance to pass the course without presenting, would I take it? I answered as honestly as I could - that I wanted to take the out, but I also wanted to NOT want to take the out. Know what I mean? So I finally said, screw it, and just presented the work I'd done.
When it was over he told me that I'd done a good job, and that it was as interesting as he'd hoped. Then that spawned a whole academic conversation about parenting and anxiety, and how children are screwed up by their parents but there are steps they can take that might mitigate it, and how cultural differences account for different parenting styles... it's fascinating, but again. No written paper. Then Professor T told me that maybe it was time to grow up, and then we talked about finding my passion and doing that - not looking for financial success like my mother wanted from me, but something that I could sink my teeth and talent into and would make me happy. I told him that I did have a dream, and that school might not be the answer for it. I want to exercise my creativity in bullshit, I want to use all the skills I've honed in my life of making excuses and finding loopholes and wormholes and ways around the letter of the law to do something good. There's so much social injustice in the world, and I DO have talent at combining disciplines and synthesizing information into speeches that are interesting, sound intelligent, can do something instead of just be inadequate. I've never been so inspired to go out into the world and make good, you know? I want to know that I can make a difference, that instead of mostly-useless papers and mostly-dismissable studenthood I can go out and relate to adults in an adult world, in an adult fashion, and be taken seriously. I've spent so much of my life as some kind of supplicant that I think it would be a lovely change to own something. To own myself, to hold myself accountable for events in the universe, to change them and improve them or alleviate them.
Finally, he hugged me and said that in 10 years, he expected a letter from me outlining what I'd done that changed the world. That kind of faith has been hard to come by; unconditional, unexpected, and so different from some of the things that my mom has asked and expected of me.
So. Now I go back to work, but with the feeling that I have a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful; like someone worth being. And that's worth more to me than any 20% final paper.
I had a 12 page paper that I needed to submit on Turnitin.com and a hard copy to my professor due yesterday. I could not do it. I also had a 12-minute presentation on the same topic to do that I had put off from its due date, March 25th, to the last day of class, again, yesterday. Professor T had emailed me on Sunday, asking why I had not yet presented, so I emailed him back on Tuesday (very late) that I would present the next day. Me being me, I prepared it yesterday in the hours before and during class, thus not presenting on Wednesday as I had said. I finished it this morning, and I was going to present it to my prof today since in his original email he said that the leftover people who had also not presented would do so on Thursday. I didn't show up to class on Wednesday (still working on that presentation and despairing of the paper, dammit) so I showed up today at the location only to find that nobody was there. Panic! I'm resigned to mediocrity in this class, but I thought I needed the presentation to boost my mark just enough to pass - I'd done more than passing well on two tests, participation grades, and with a boost on attendance I could make the magic 50%. Turns out that even without the presentation I did make 50%, and since he gave me a 90% on it it brings my grade up to a 63% (without the final paper? 80%).
So. I called him, found out he was in his office, and went in to beg for the chance to present my Powerpoint slides; I mean, might as well do it, right? It was done. But before we did that he spoke to me about why it was that I wasn't going to hand in my paper. It was a good thing I'd covered some of this with my therapist - instead of confusion and apathy I actually had some insight into my own motivations enough to say that it was my own fault. I owned the error, the pathetic inability to write anything, my completely irrational fear of research papers, and the fact that writing essays on the fly had become my signature. Now, let me lay something out. I can and have written 10 page papers in less than 24 hours, and despite the fact that every paper I write I claim is "the worst ever" I can achieve 70s, 80s. B's and A's, basically. But when there is a confluence of papers, as in, every year twice a year around exam time, I panic and can do NOTHING. So I told him all of this and he told me that he had been surprised and disappointed by my absence on Wednesday, since he thought that mine was an opinion worth listening to. I contribute in class because I think it's interesting, because I can synthesize information (in the verbal forum) and make connections. His perception of me was that I'm smart, and that I have something to offer the class - the world!
He told me that I was intelligent, and that I write last minute papers because I'm coasting. He said that I'm bright enough to belong to "that elite club that has something to offer the world, that can give insight that will change things for the better," and that if I kept defining myself by my mother's outrageously unfair standards I would only keep coming up short in my head and failing to complete things, failing to COMPETE, because I'd psych myself out. We talked about academia being a game with strict rules, that the world was a messier place where you can find just about any niche because they exist, you just have to find them. We talked about how my procrastination was a mechanism to cope with guilt over not doing things to (my mother's) standards, as well as my own.
He asked me the pivotal question: If I had the chance to pass the course without presenting, would I take it? I answered as honestly as I could - that I wanted to take the out, but I also wanted to NOT want to take the out. Know what I mean? So I finally said, screw it, and just presented the work I'd done.
When it was over he told me that I'd done a good job, and that it was as interesting as he'd hoped. Then that spawned a whole academic conversation about parenting and anxiety, and how children are screwed up by their parents but there are steps they can take that might mitigate it, and how cultural differences account for different parenting styles... it's fascinating, but again. No written paper. Then Professor T told me that maybe it was time to grow up, and then we talked about finding my passion and doing that - not looking for financial success like my mother wanted from me, but something that I could sink my teeth and talent into and would make me happy. I told him that I did have a dream, and that school might not be the answer for it. I want to exercise my creativity in bullshit, I want to use all the skills I've honed in my life of making excuses and finding loopholes and wormholes and ways around the letter of the law to do something good. There's so much social injustice in the world, and I DO have talent at combining disciplines and synthesizing information into speeches that are interesting, sound intelligent, can do something instead of just be inadequate. I've never been so inspired to go out into the world and make good, you know? I want to know that I can make a difference, that instead of mostly-useless papers and mostly-dismissable studenthood I can go out and relate to adults in an adult world, in an adult fashion, and be taken seriously. I've spent so much of my life as some kind of supplicant that I think it would be a lovely change to own something. To own myself, to hold myself accountable for events in the universe, to change them and improve them or alleviate them.
Finally, he hugged me and said that in 10 years, he expected a letter from me outlining what I'd done that changed the world. That kind of faith has been hard to come by; unconditional, unexpected, and so different from some of the things that my mom has asked and expected of me.
So. Now I go back to work, but with the feeling that I have a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful; like someone worth being. And that's worth more to me than any 20% final paper.