Category: School

The things I love depress me

I love United States of Tara so much. But it makes me depressed because I can’t ever imagine writing it.
But maybe this is because I enjoy it so much that I don’t want to do the hard work of breaking it down into structure and characters with voices. Maybe I could actually.

Today was scholarship application day at school. I wrote about how I want to someday be a great writer, and tied it in with the whole Outliers thing about how it takes 10,000 hours to become a real expert at something.

It’s all true, but feels fraudulent because from where I am, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be so much better than I am now, and I can’t imagine how I’d get there, even with that many hours.

Plus I didn’t mention that the rest of the book is basically how even if you’re great at something, being born in the right place at the right time is key to being successful.

I did actually mention–which possibly wasn’t that smart–that I get so anxious about the money pouring into this whole endeavor at this late date, that I consider quitting every day.

But then I get an email from someone who, twice my age, has always thought about pursuing a creative life, but couldn’t push through his fears to really put himself and his work up to criticism. As he comes closer to the end of his life, the desire to have his efforts realized is as strong as ever.

I know that whatever else, I don’t want to be in that place in forty years. Even if fail drastically, it seems true the cliche that I’ll feel better if I know I tried.

I Hate My Grantwriting Class

Somehow, by mid-semester I always realize that I have a couple of classes that are awesome and that I would be happy devoting my life to, and then one ridiculously labor intensive class that makes me feel like A) my head is going to explode B) I am wasting valuable moments of my life C)I am a little rule-mongering toady because I have to follow the rules and do all the crappy busy-work because I don’t have the balls to just say…”that fact that you assigned this makes it clear that you don’t have any idea what you are doing, that you are clueless as to the time it takes to do this, and, oh, by the way, if you taught us anything in class you wouldn’t have to give us some huge-ass 6 month correspondence course that you downloaded from the web somewhere as a take home mid term over our spring break, I hate you!” Some people are born with ability to say such things, but I am not one. It is possibly the life lesson that I need to learn in order to reincarnate in my next life as more evolved being and not a piss ant or a rock.

Damnit

Damnit Damnit fucking damnit.
I think today was the last day to pay tuition and fees. Not that the university ever warns you in anyway. you’d think with all the propaganda they send, they might, until you think of how much money they make by charging the $100 late fee.

So I hate the university, which charges me late fees, and even for my 7pm classes has no parking available around that building.

I hate Paul because everytime we have a fight in the morning, I forget something on that day’s to do list, and usually by the time we’re done, whatever it is we were fighting about, usually cleaning or doing tasks that will prevent us from losing money, doesn’t get done anyway, so it seems pointless to bother.

I don’t hate me of course, because it has nothing to do with my own utter disorganization and distractibility.

I Love My Classes

(Admittedly, I always do at the beginning of a semester.)

My Screenwriting workshop, my non-fiction writing workshop, my fiction-writing workshop, and my grantwriting workshop are all excellent.

So far there is just one problem: Two of these classes, the fiction and the non-fiction workshops, meet on the same night at the same time.

Because of of instructor conflicts and holidays, the classes began on alternate weeks and I have been able to attend the first session of both classes…but now the jig is up. On Monday I need to pick one, because I can’t be in two places at once.

Oh why can’t quantum mechanics keep up with my desires?

Out of Africa

For my new project of figuring out how and where to find money for Paul’s upcoming film I’ve been investigating classes at FSU. Last night I went to one called “Fundraising and Development” taught through the Public Administration Department. It was pretty interesting. One thing the instructor said that really caught my attention was this:

Each morning in Africa a gazelle awakes.
It knows that it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be eaten.
Each morning in Africa a lion awakes.
It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.
It matters not whether you are a lion or a gazelle,
When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

That seemed like a pretty interesting concept, although I couldn’t apply it in any kind of direct way to what she was saying about fundraising.

When Paul came home, I started to tell him, but he stopped me in mid-sentence.

“I know that one,” he said, “It was on one of the inspirational corporate posters for sale in the in-flight catalogues on the airplane.”

Damn. You think you’ve been given an original profound thought, and it turns out just to be ‘Footprints” for marketing staff.