Mostly Pessimistic Thoughts

Sometimes I catch myself reminiscing over little snippets of my New York trip. I've not glamorized it so much yet that I don't remember all the angst and frustration - remember how I hated it, even? - but there are moments and emotions that I still look back on fondly. I remember laying in my top bunk with the breeze blowing against my back from my bay window, and I remember a mixed feeling of helplessness and independence. That's a strong emotion. It's beautiful and tragic all at once, when you feel both like you're accomplishing something amazing but also as though you're right on the verge of being in way over your head. I think that's an emotion that I experience regularly right now. I'm happy, I'm thrilled that things are going the way they are, but I feel as if I'm far too close to the deep end.

This U.S. history class has really shaken my worldview. The awful, atrocious things that America has done absolutely blows my mind. Not even the slavery, the exploitation of women and children, the lynchings and prejudice that lasted well into the 20th century (which seems as if it should have been the pinnacle of modernity). Things like the way we gained Hawaii, for instance. The U.S. government basically set into motion a series of events that they knew would lead to a revolt, and American sugar planters took over the government from the Hawaiian queen. Even some of Teddy Roosevelt's political moves just shock me - I was aware of a lot of the awful things that America has done over the years, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.

It's not fair to say that without a nod towards some of the awful things that humanity as an entity has enacted on each other. It's nothing unique to Americans, it's unique to humanity itself. There's an innate kind of cruelty specific to people that even our closest evolutionary relatives don't have. Animals may eat their young, but it's with none of the same malice that the Spaniards tortured people with during the Inquisition. It's disheartening, really.

I have just the most amazing friends and family. In all seriousness, I can't imagine how I would make it without them. Last night, my sister and Casey hauled most of my belongings from my apartment to the new house. Troopers, the both of them, and all I did in return was give them some chocolatey non-coffee. I wish I could really express my thanks in some more meaningful way, other than just to say that I cannot imagine a life without the kind of people that I've been lucky enough to become close with.

I need to start thinking of "Brian's place" as "our place." That's going to be a shift. I'm four days away from having no other place to go, but I still just keep thinking of it as "his place." That's crappy from a personal standpoint, but I also need to learn to take ownership of it just so I can feel like I have something of my own.

More General Frustrations

I have one of the most pointless, frustrating jobs I've ever imagined. On the few days when I feel some sense of accomplishment or fulfillment, more often than not I'm told that, although I did something correctly, I need to do it again a different way for boss number three. And then halfway through that, I need to do it a third way for boss number four. I've worked places where the communication was heinous - nonexistent - but this more or less trumps them all. I'm all tied up by red tape, and anytime I do anything at all, I'm constantly afraid that someone else in a higher position than me is going to demand that I do it again, differently.

Bureaucracy and politics may, in fact, be the root of all evil. Not even state and federal politics (that one's a given), but just interpersonal politics that make all kinds of little things difficult. Or maybe my world is just too small - that's entirely possible. When all of the important people in your life know each other as closely as you know them, or closer, you're stuck in situations where you know more about each of those people than you want to know, and your role in the middle essentially boils down to "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I can't make everyone happy in this situation, and the real problem is that it's my fault for allowing myself to slip in the middle. Stupid, stupid.

My commitment - no, that's not the right word. My drive tends to waver or fade depending on certain circumstances. Being sick for so long certainly didn't help. I got sick, am still a little sick, and can't focus on anything simple for very long, much less Foucault and Freud through a feminist theory lens. Also the aforementioned situation leaves me feeling . . . an aversion. When I'm disillusioned by something (an easy task, as I'm sure is evident by this point), I feel far less desire to get things done. That's such a character flaw. I need to find my own drive and stop relying on others'.

This thesis is starting to really overwhelm me. I was sent back some revisions today, and although I'd totally expected an entire wall of blue to take over my three pages of notes, there were questions on there that, as far as I know, have no answers. Here's an example: "And this he means neurophysiologically, yes? In which case, you think of it in terms of the performative (a la Butler)." Oy. Butler confuses me, neurophysiology confuses me, and performativity (although Brian is currently ensconced in its grasp) confuses me. I'm learning, and so help me I'll have all of this at least tenuously in my head by tomorrow, but it's a brutal realization when your thesis no longer makes any sense to you.

Moving Woes

I get bizarrely melancholy whenever I move. It doesn't matter if I'm moving somewhere better (which I clearly am) or whether the circumstances are sort of forcing me into it - the fact that I'm ending a chapter of my life, and beginning another chapter, breaks a little piece of my heart. I know it makes no sense, but once I've become used to the circumstances I'm in, the idea of changing them goes against everything in me. Maybe each apartment is an incarnation of me - a little part of me that I'm leaving behind. Or maybe each of my apartments have been a manifestation of my personality, so moving out feels like a slow deconstruction. Whether or not I can put my finger on it, the melancholy, the reminiscence still looms large whenever I start putting belongings in boxes.

I think I'm going to change this blog around, and hopefully can start channeling some of my terror towards this (more constructive) venue. First of all, clearly I don't live in Brooklyn anymore. So I think it's important to label more what it is - "Theories on Life of a Soon-To-Be College Graduate," or something to that effect. All of my life that isn't concerned with finishing my thesis and keeping a half-step ahead of my classes is now concerned with figuring out how to cope with the crushing weight of my future. And those are just on days when I'm not constantly asking myself "why did I choose this major? Why am I not in the business school? What possessed me to go into the arts?"

Taking a break from the complaining for a moment, I'd like to mention that Brian has been so incredibly supportive through all of this. I know by this point he has little desire to talk through all of my life issues - that do pertain to him, but that don't get a lot easier even when you agonize over them - but every time I want to talk it over, he's game for it. He's told me that it's not over if I move, but that if I want to go somewhere else I could, and should. He's told me that if I want to go to grad school in another state, he'd have no problem going with me so long as that school had a decent rhetoric program. I don't know what I did to deserve him - no, actually, I know I never could have done anything great enough to deserve him - but I'm so intensely grateful for the crazy set of coincidences that led us to each other. I hope I'm half as good to him as he is to me.

Oh Sarah. Congratulations, dear one, on getting into your top school. I am so very happy for you - you deserve everything good that's about to come your way. Thank you for always listening when I'm frustrated or scared, for always supporting my crazy ideas (encouraging certain TA-baiting ones), for always being a great friend. I know what you're going through, all the anxiety that comes from moving to a brand new city, and I hope I can help you through it as much as you helped me, although I know you won't need it.

Where does a film studies major even start to find a job?