Gathering Thoughts
Sep. 3rd, 2009 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationSeptember 26th at 1AM = plane leaves for China. By the way. Just so no one forgets that :P
I've been thinking a lot about the possibility of going back to school and what exactly I would do. Bevan and I talked about it quite a bit - and in the course of our conversation, I realized (again) just how much of a loner I've become. Or I've always been, I don't know. Bevan doesn't count because he's my boyfriend - I can devote my attention to one special person, but that's maybe all I've got room for these days. Or any days, I don't know. Thinking about going to school has got me thinking back to when I was in college and how I felt like I had so many friends, but... those people were just people I lived with. They were my social circle because I lived in the circle. It was very much a take-it-or-leave-it kind of friendship. We had great times. They're great people. But I wouldn't say we're still friends. Or maybe even that we were ever friends.
When things, things of great importance, come up in my life, things like making decisions concerning my future, I feel like I've got no one to bounce ideas off of - except him. And in this particular instance he's not the best sounding board. And he knows it. I'm asking him for advice on things in which he has no knowledge to draw from. If I describe something and say "do you think this will work" he'll say yes, because he believes that I know what I'm talking about. But there isn't anyone else. I wish Erica wasn't someone I decided was no good as a friend. Cause I could really use a conversation with her right now.
I have my transcripts here in front of me, and college on paper is vastly different from the college in my memory. Some things, apparently, my memory has edited pretty severely. For instance, my GPA appears to be a 3.78, and yet in my head all I did was screw around. Of course, it also seems I withdrew - late - from quite a few classes in the course of my education. Probably because I couldn't save my grade. Also, I completed the Elements level of Chinese, and I thought I only finished one semester of that. So in fact it was the Intermediate Chinese class that I withdrew from. Also I'm one class away from a Spanish language certificate and I don't even remember taking a Spanish class besides what I took in community. So it seems that I took an advanced class in college and one more advanced class would get me a certificate.
I also did some very strange things in the Italian language department, namely, in my last two years of college I took several Italian literature and culture classes (in Italian, through the Italian department) and I remember having to get special permission to do that, because I didn't take the prerequisite classes or test out of them. The prereqs were the language classes, elements and intermediate, and I didn't take them because I speak Italian already, and I never tested out of them because I didn't take placement tests for foreign languages because I transferred in with advanced language credits already. So I don't even know where I can go with that - that's a big chunk of an Italian major right there, but wtf am I going to do with an Italian major?
And I did take two upperclass art history classes - they were crossdepartmental topics classes and I forgot they were part of the art history department, but they are. One was a contemporary galleries class and one was a history of Sicilian art in culture. Two more topics classes and that's a minor in art history.
I went from international studies to art history because I think at the time that's where I felt like my heart really was, cheesy as it sounds. That's what I really wanted to study and learn.
And I went from art history to education because I realized (or admitted) that I'm not really the academic type, I don't get any kind of joy from writing papers or doing research - I enjoyed class discussions and I enjoyed learning the histories and philosophies of different movements and artists, but it just suddenly seemed... not for me. The thought of endless school and then ending up teaching in a school was not something that I wanted to commit myself to. Education was more hands-on, people oriented, seemed like a job after graduation was a distinct possibility, and all those education classes I took were very, very interesting, all about learning styles and teaching philosophies and the human development classes were fascinating... the practicum classes were great too, where we made lesson plans and everything (did I mention... I think I did not... it was art education. I was working on a degree to become an art teacher. I think I have said I was an art teacher in a past life. This is, in a way, true, because I taught art at an after school program for a while, and this was my favoritest job ever)
n the end I was kind of starting to talk myself out of that one too, thinking maybe I didn't want to work in a public school, remembering how much I hated school and how miserable it made me and thinking why would I want to spend my life in a place I hate??? But that's a moot point by now anyway.
I feel like I'm running around in circles trying to figure out what degree I really want and what I want to do with it - now that I know there is no simple solution it's kind of like giving myself permission to consider the more complicated routes. Get a degree in International Studies (I'd have to figure out my concentration - I never did that because I decided I wasn't interested in any of the concentrations...) with a language certificate of some sort. Take the rest of those Chinese classes and get a liberal arts degree in Asian studies with a Chinese language certificate. I bet that'd be pretty marketable, although I don't really know that that's what I want to do or study. Go back to my long-ago plan of being a liberal arts major with a concentration in creative writing (I didn't do that for two reasons, one, I didn't believe I'd get a job at the end of it all, and two, I didn't like turning something I loved doing into something I did for a grade. I didn't like changing the way I wrote in order to better please a teacher, etc)
Go back to my less-long-ago plan of being an art history major and get ready to apply for a master's program and do the double masters thing with business management and work in a gallery. I'd love to work in a gallery. I did work in a gallery at one point (for like, seven dollars an hour...) but that was a print gallery - it was a framing store with a gallery attached. I also worked at a gallery where I charged people for admission to the shows - that's it, that's all I did, took money and gave out buttons. That paid very little as well, but I also enjoyed that job.
I don't know, actually, I think that talking with Bevan about this really did help me sort a few things out. He said to think about why I actually want to be in school. There are a lot of reasons, but I'm not sure how much validity they really have.
I want to be in school because I feel like a big loser.
He and I have talked about this many times. He is very much of the mindset that your job cannot make you a loser, it's what you do with the life that you have that counts. But the key difference between my life and his is that he enjoys being a bartender and he enjoys his life. Maybe he doesn't want to bartend forever, but it is something he likes to do. He wanted to go to school not because he felt like a loser doing what he was doing, but because he wanted to open up the possibilities of doing something else. I... do not enjoy my job at all. And I feel like I've got all this pent up mental energy that's just wasting away. Like I'll forget how to use my brain if I don't, you know, use it for something. There's nothing intellectually stimulating in my life except for what I find here on the internet. And the internet is lovely, but there is more to the world than what's on my screen. I think :P
I want to be in school because I want to be around people who share my interests and level of intelligence. I know I sound so stuck up saying this. But this town... all the smart people have left, they've gone away to college, graduated, and stayed away. I feel awful saying that but it's very true - I feel awful for being that stuck up, but I am, so I'll admit it.
I want to be in school because I would like it. I miss class discussions. I miss being on campus. I miss being around other students. I miss learning new things that I don't learn on my own. Things that wouldn't occur to me to try to learn because I don't know of their existence, or things that I can't learn on my own because... I'm just not that awesome. How to speak Chinese is not something you can teach yourself. Or that I can teach myself, anyway - language is an interactive thing. I can't have a conversation with myself, it's like playing chess with yourself, you can't make conversational interpretations and decisions when you already know what you're going to say - if that makes any sense.
To get a master's in art history my school requires, among other things, a reading examination in German and either French or Italian. My first thought was cool, I'm good for Italian and my second thought was awesome, I'd have to learn German. Which I don't know any of but I do know some Afrikaans. So I think that would boost my conversational skills right there, because I often understand a bit of spoken German because it sounds so much like Afrikaans. This doesn't mean I can speak or read any German. But I know what I'm hearing sometimes. And how fascinating would that be, to compare the two languages? Quite possibly very confusing, but still fascinating I'm sure.
But really - school appeals to me because I want to be in that environment. Not because I want to to something in particular with any sort of degree. And that might not be the right reason to go back.
And honestly, that's the only reason I ever went to college in the first place. Not because I had any idea of what I wanted to do as a career, but just because I wanted to be there.
I've made some very illogical decisions with my education. VERY. Dropping out of high school was... kind of a crazy thing to do. I did it because I did not want to be there and that was that. It was... essentially, a temper tantrum. I do not want to do this and I won't. Go me, right? Community was great - I took a test and placed into different levels in different departments, which was a big reason I had such an issue in high school, with having to take classes where I already knew all the material, some of which I had actually already taken the year before - it was like I was being forcibly made to fall behind the rest of my class (I did miss just about a whole year, so...) and it was just so stupid... there were so many ridiculous rules, like you couldn't eat or drink between classes, and things like that - it was just... yeah, it was pretty much a temper tantrum on my part.
Now, logically, I could have stayed at community college for four semesters and gotten my associates degree. Then I'd have an associate's degree right now. I could have then transferred that degree to a four-year college. But I did not do that. Because I wanted to go away to college and I didn't want to wait. I turned eighteen and left, not because I could learn more at a four-year college, but because that's where I thought I wanted to be. I wanted to leave my town, leave my parents' house, and get the fuck out.
And I feel like I'm essentially doing the same thing here. I don't want to be here either - so because I don't want to be here, I should go to school?
I was so young. Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty? College is a time in my life I try to just put behind me. I don't have anything to show for it and I usually don't even tell anyone I even went, I don't see the point. Those people I met, those friends I had are not my friends anymore. That amazing connection I felt, that exhilarating feeling of finally, this is where I belong! was all just an illusion - that atmosphere was transitory, it was never going to last anyway. It was never going to be me and Daniel and Jay and Jilly and Nina and Stephen with D and R next door all together forever - it was all just temporary and I think part of me never really got that.
I feel like I've been hiding here. I'm... so, so embarrassed about things I said or did or caused that last year - those people are not my friends anymore because I cannot face them. I'm... very, very ashamed of the things I did and the way I acted and I am hiding here. That's me, Lara Inside. Because inside, I'm still Lara, and I'm inside, hiding here, where you can't see me.
...
You know what I wanted to to, originally? When I did have a goal, you know what it actually was? I wanted to go to art school, not just because I thought it would be a "cool place to be" or because I thought it would get me a job in the end, but because I wanted to learn to be an artist. I wanted to be part of a community of artists, of people who create things, and I wanted to learn to live that kind of life. I took art classes in community. I took art classes at the local art school and at my college as well and loved them all. Creating things gives me a kind of inner peace that nothing else ever has.
Hanna went to art school, I think I mentioned that, she graduated this past spring and I got kinda jealous hearing her talk about it.
I don't mean that's actually what I want to do now. I can't think of anything more impractical. But part of me wishes I should have done it then, because it was for a stupid reason that I didn't.
...
I wish I knew what I wanted. If I knew "what I want to be when I grow up" I'd make a plan, I'd figure out how to do it and then get on with it. But I don't.
I've been thinking a lot about the possibility of going back to school and what exactly I would do. Bevan and I talked about it quite a bit - and in the course of our conversation, I realized (again) just how much of a loner I've become. Or I've always been, I don't know. Bevan doesn't count because he's my boyfriend - I can devote my attention to one special person, but that's maybe all I've got room for these days. Or any days, I don't know. Thinking about going to school has got me thinking back to when I was in college and how I felt like I had so many friends, but... those people were just people I lived with. They were my social circle because I lived in the circle. It was very much a take-it-or-leave-it kind of friendship. We had great times. They're great people. But I wouldn't say we're still friends. Or maybe even that we were ever friends.
When things, things of great importance, come up in my life, things like making decisions concerning my future, I feel like I've got no one to bounce ideas off of - except him. And in this particular instance he's not the best sounding board. And he knows it. I'm asking him for advice on things in which he has no knowledge to draw from. If I describe something and say "do you think this will work" he'll say yes, because he believes that I know what I'm talking about. But there isn't anyone else. I wish Erica wasn't someone I decided was no good as a friend. Cause I could really use a conversation with her right now.
I have my transcripts here in front of me, and college on paper is vastly different from the college in my memory. Some things, apparently, my memory has edited pretty severely. For instance, my GPA appears to be a 3.78, and yet in my head all I did was screw around. Of course, it also seems I withdrew - late - from quite a few classes in the course of my education. Probably because I couldn't save my grade. Also, I completed the Elements level of Chinese, and I thought I only finished one semester of that. So in fact it was the Intermediate Chinese class that I withdrew from. Also I'm one class away from a Spanish language certificate and I don't even remember taking a Spanish class besides what I took in community. So it seems that I took an advanced class in college and one more advanced class would get me a certificate.
I also did some very strange things in the Italian language department, namely, in my last two years of college I took several Italian literature and culture classes (in Italian, through the Italian department) and I remember having to get special permission to do that, because I didn't take the prerequisite classes or test out of them. The prereqs were the language classes, elements and intermediate, and I didn't take them because I speak Italian already, and I never tested out of them because I didn't take placement tests for foreign languages because I transferred in with advanced language credits already. So I don't even know where I can go with that - that's a big chunk of an Italian major right there, but wtf am I going to do with an Italian major?
And I did take two upperclass art history classes - they were crossdepartmental topics classes and I forgot they were part of the art history department, but they are. One was a contemporary galleries class and one was a history of Sicilian art in culture. Two more topics classes and that's a minor in art history.
I went from international studies to art history because I think at the time that's where I felt like my heart really was, cheesy as it sounds. That's what I really wanted to study and learn.
And I went from art history to education because I realized (or admitted) that I'm not really the academic type, I don't get any kind of joy from writing papers or doing research - I enjoyed class discussions and I enjoyed learning the histories and philosophies of different movements and artists, but it just suddenly seemed... not for me. The thought of endless school and then ending up teaching in a school was not something that I wanted to commit myself to. Education was more hands-on, people oriented, seemed like a job after graduation was a distinct possibility, and all those education classes I took were very, very interesting, all about learning styles and teaching philosophies and the human development classes were fascinating... the practicum classes were great too, where we made lesson plans and everything (did I mention... I think I did not... it was art education. I was working on a degree to become an art teacher. I think I have said I was an art teacher in a past life. This is, in a way, true, because I taught art at an after school program for a while, and this was my favoritest job ever)
n the end I was kind of starting to talk myself out of that one too, thinking maybe I didn't want to work in a public school, remembering how much I hated school and how miserable it made me and thinking why would I want to spend my life in a place I hate??? But that's a moot point by now anyway.
I feel like I'm running around in circles trying to figure out what degree I really want and what I want to do with it - now that I know there is no simple solution it's kind of like giving myself permission to consider the more complicated routes. Get a degree in International Studies (I'd have to figure out my concentration - I never did that because I decided I wasn't interested in any of the concentrations...) with a language certificate of some sort. Take the rest of those Chinese classes and get a liberal arts degree in Asian studies with a Chinese language certificate. I bet that'd be pretty marketable, although I don't really know that that's what I want to do or study. Go back to my long-ago plan of being a liberal arts major with a concentration in creative writing (I didn't do that for two reasons, one, I didn't believe I'd get a job at the end of it all, and two, I didn't like turning something I loved doing into something I did for a grade. I didn't like changing the way I wrote in order to better please a teacher, etc)
Go back to my less-long-ago plan of being an art history major and get ready to apply for a master's program and do the double masters thing with business management and work in a gallery. I'd love to work in a gallery. I did work in a gallery at one point (for like, seven dollars an hour...) but that was a print gallery - it was a framing store with a gallery attached. I also worked at a gallery where I charged people for admission to the shows - that's it, that's all I did, took money and gave out buttons. That paid very little as well, but I also enjoyed that job.
I don't know, actually, I think that talking with Bevan about this really did help me sort a few things out. He said to think about why I actually want to be in school. There are a lot of reasons, but I'm not sure how much validity they really have.
I want to be in school because I feel like a big loser.
He and I have talked about this many times. He is very much of the mindset that your job cannot make you a loser, it's what you do with the life that you have that counts. But the key difference between my life and his is that he enjoys being a bartender and he enjoys his life. Maybe he doesn't want to bartend forever, but it is something he likes to do. He wanted to go to school not because he felt like a loser doing what he was doing, but because he wanted to open up the possibilities of doing something else. I... do not enjoy my job at all. And I feel like I've got all this pent up mental energy that's just wasting away. Like I'll forget how to use my brain if I don't, you know, use it for something. There's nothing intellectually stimulating in my life except for what I find here on the internet. And the internet is lovely, but there is more to the world than what's on my screen. I think :P
I want to be in school because I want to be around people who share my interests and level of intelligence. I know I sound so stuck up saying this. But this town... all the smart people have left, they've gone away to college, graduated, and stayed away. I feel awful saying that but it's very true - I feel awful for being that stuck up, but I am, so I'll admit it.
I want to be in school because I would like it. I miss class discussions. I miss being on campus. I miss being around other students. I miss learning new things that I don't learn on my own. Things that wouldn't occur to me to try to learn because I don't know of their existence, or things that I can't learn on my own because... I'm just not that awesome. How to speak Chinese is not something you can teach yourself. Or that I can teach myself, anyway - language is an interactive thing. I can't have a conversation with myself, it's like playing chess with yourself, you can't make conversational interpretations and decisions when you already know what you're going to say - if that makes any sense.
To get a master's in art history my school requires, among other things, a reading examination in German and either French or Italian. My first thought was cool, I'm good for Italian and my second thought was awesome, I'd have to learn German. Which I don't know any of but I do know some Afrikaans. So I think that would boost my conversational skills right there, because I often understand a bit of spoken German because it sounds so much like Afrikaans. This doesn't mean I can speak or read any German. But I know what I'm hearing sometimes. And how fascinating would that be, to compare the two languages? Quite possibly very confusing, but still fascinating I'm sure.
But really - school appeals to me because I want to be in that environment. Not because I want to to something in particular with any sort of degree. And that might not be the right reason to go back.
And honestly, that's the only reason I ever went to college in the first place. Not because I had any idea of what I wanted to do as a career, but just because I wanted to be there.
I've made some very illogical decisions with my education. VERY. Dropping out of high school was... kind of a crazy thing to do. I did it because I did not want to be there and that was that. It was... essentially, a temper tantrum. I do not want to do this and I won't. Go me, right? Community was great - I took a test and placed into different levels in different departments, which was a big reason I had such an issue in high school, with having to take classes where I already knew all the material, some of which I had actually already taken the year before - it was like I was being forcibly made to fall behind the rest of my class (I did miss just about a whole year, so...) and it was just so stupid... there were so many ridiculous rules, like you couldn't eat or drink between classes, and things like that - it was just... yeah, it was pretty much a temper tantrum on my part.
Now, logically, I could have stayed at community college for four semesters and gotten my associates degree. Then I'd have an associate's degree right now. I could have then transferred that degree to a four-year college. But I did not do that. Because I wanted to go away to college and I didn't want to wait. I turned eighteen and left, not because I could learn more at a four-year college, but because that's where I thought I wanted to be. I wanted to leave my town, leave my parents' house, and get the fuck out.
And I feel like I'm essentially doing the same thing here. I don't want to be here either - so because I don't want to be here, I should go to school?
I was so young. Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty? College is a time in my life I try to just put behind me. I don't have anything to show for it and I usually don't even tell anyone I even went, I don't see the point. Those people I met, those friends I had are not my friends anymore. That amazing connection I felt, that exhilarating feeling of finally, this is where I belong! was all just an illusion - that atmosphere was transitory, it was never going to last anyway. It was never going to be me and Daniel and Jay and Jilly and Nina and Stephen with D and R next door all together forever - it was all just temporary and I think part of me never really got that.
I feel like I've been hiding here. I'm... so, so embarrassed about things I said or did or caused that last year - those people are not my friends anymore because I cannot face them. I'm... very, very ashamed of the things I did and the way I acted and I am hiding here. That's me, Lara Inside. Because inside, I'm still Lara, and I'm inside, hiding here, where you can't see me.
...
You know what I wanted to to, originally? When I did have a goal, you know what it actually was? I wanted to go to art school, not just because I thought it would be a "cool place to be" or because I thought it would get me a job in the end, but because I wanted to learn to be an artist. I wanted to be part of a community of artists, of people who create things, and I wanted to learn to live that kind of life. I took art classes in community. I took art classes at the local art school and at my college as well and loved them all. Creating things gives me a kind of inner peace that nothing else ever has.
Hanna went to art school, I think I mentioned that, she graduated this past spring and I got kinda jealous hearing her talk about it.
I don't mean that's actually what I want to do now. I can't think of anything more impractical. But part of me wishes I should have done it then, because it was for a stupid reason that I didn't.
...
I wish I knew what I wanted. If I knew "what I want to be when I grow up" I'd make a plan, I'd figure out how to do it and then get on with it. But I don't.
