12 January 2010

no bjork left behind

Part of me wants to support compliments on my intellect. You know, invite them and then roll around in them as if I was in one of those plexiglass chambers where you're covered in honey and dollar bills are blowing around as you try to grab as many as you can. But (1) I have a strong aversion to game show reminiscent things like hordes of people, men with orange tan skin, and fake audience applause, and (2) I am afraid I'm actually perpetuating an Ellsworth Toohey society of mediocrity by trumpeting my habit of abstruse communication all over the internet. Speaking of which, the two fictional characters from literature I think about the most are Toohey and Miss Havisham. That might say something about me.

Back to my intellect, I was raised by a professor and a teacher/librarian. My close relatives are all professors and teachers. My sister is getting her masters and teaching art. I was certain from early childhood that I would get a doctorate. In fact, I had dreams of being one of those people with multiple doctorates from multiple countries. Maybe I have senioritis, or more appropriately, super-senioritis, but I feel like I'm the apple leaping from the tree. Sometimes when I sit in classes that aren't film classes I imagine poking my eyeballs out with a fork and about how I could teach myself the same stuff from a book without having to sit in restrictive classrooms and jumping through hoops. Then I look back on my ancestry steeped in degrees (like tea but with glasses and theses) and I wonder how I could turn into such a snot-nosed kid who doesn't know what's good for her. I wasn't raised to be the bored, unengaged student in the corner! Why am I the thing that's not like the others? Then I want to poke my eyeballs out even more.

The earth may shatter after I type this, but my interest in intellectual pursuits is waning and my support of trade schools is growing. Rapidly. I don't know what this means.

help!
. . . _ _ _ . . .

5 comments:

  1. I think it means that you should be a welder. Emma the welder. Nice ring.

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  2. I think it means that you are getting ready to graduate. There comes a time in one's college career where one says, "I have to get out of here. Hmm, I like this field of study, I'll graduate in that and then I'm gone!" Of course, it still took a year....but, I did graduate....

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  3. i felt like that before i graduated. and actually i still feel that way. i am blissfully happy to sew and make things and be oh so crafty and not so school-y. but of course its only been like four months. maybe someday it will come back, the school-learning yearning. and maybe not. but either way it doesn't matter. you learn more outside of school anyways.
    good seeing you the other day and lovely lovely blog
    :)

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  4. Just don't poke your eyes out, they are too pretty.

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  5. There is nothing wrong with you! University has served you well and served it's purpose- to get you prepared to face the world. You are tired of just hearing and learning and not enough of the doing and living part. I think you are wonderful and highly intelligent. A testament to this is that you realize that you don't HAVE to get a doctorate because of tradition and have the wits to blaze your own trail out of academia. Blaze away my friend!

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