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i'm still here, would you believe.

(this is what happens when you have "time" - you waste it, waste it bad!)

my head has been so full of angst these past few weeks. a lot of it has been stress-fuelled, concern with the essays, disbelief at my irresponsibility, all that jazz. but lately, finishing up these projects, i've been consumed with fear - fear of losing a part of me that has existed for so long now. The Student.

i was looking for my tax stuff in my office, and i had to go through several piles of papers, mostly schoolwork, to do so. i was astonished at the sheer mass of notes i had taken...ranging from my beloved "women in medieval europe" course, to the innane statistics course i needed for my then-major in psychology, the one i failed and had to take again, barely passing with a lucky 52%. i was impressed by the research papers i had written. i have tackled so many different subjects, with the same amount of interest - cross-dressing & christianity; constructs of masculinity in autobiography; the fate of jewish immigrants to canada in the 30s; the effects of priming in linguistic overregulization and generalization in children. (what???) the development of a standard of measurement to assess cognitive beliefs of eating-disorder sufferers. the pleasure of reading horror - a psychoanalytic examination of "american psycho". psychoanalysis and serial killers.

looking through the papers, the comments from the profs, i thought about my fraudulent existence as a student - how much work had i *really* put into these things? how much had i learned? (i was pained to discover that i actually HAD spent a little more time on my final papers of last year - more, in fact, than my all-important final papers of THIS year - evinced by notes and mini-drafts, something that i don't feel i did this time around...) could i call myself an authority on any one subject?

that led me to another existential crisis - would i *ever* be an authority on anything, and how would i choose? obviously, my interests are varied. i mean, prof. hottie has a lot of intellectual interests and could be considered an authority on many things, but he's actually that brilliant. maybe i've spread myself thin in order to deflect the truth - that i don't know a lot about something, but a little about everything. would i ever be able to succeed in academia with that sort of background?

did i want to succeed in academia? is this where i was headed? could i do something like historical research? was indiana jones a history prof, or an archaeologist? would i develop the discipline it takes to get published? do i want to be published?

unnnnnngh. it made my stomach trip. it's funny how inadequate one can feel, despite being told otherwise in a variety of ways. the A papers from prof. hottie? ah, he's just being nice. the addresses of colleagues that he gave me? i snowed him over with some story of potential research - it's not that he actually has faith in me or respects my intelligence enough to refer me to these people, with the assumption that i'll mention my association with him.

i've received mini-transcripts of sorts from each department with which i am registered, either for my major or minors. it's a checklist to see if i've met my graduation requirements for each program. i was amazed at the "D-"s and "F"s abound in my pathetic psychology transcript. two "B"s out of all the courses i took.

then psychoanalytic thought - better, better. "B"s and "A"s. not counting the putrid psych courses that were cross-listed for that program.

and then history. my lowest grade, a "C" - technically a psych course, "history of psychology" i took in 3rd year. the rest, "A"s and "B+"s. what??? perhaps i had just really come to believe that i could not do it, was not university material. the bad grades were telling me that. and when i got the good grades; well, that was just a fluke. an ongoing...fluke.

so here i am. i feel confident that my next step is grad school, towards a master's, but i'm already hyperventilating at the thought of a thesis project - my independent research fiasco proved to me that i was pretty well incapable of original, independent research and thought (this is despite all of prof. hottie's interested nodding as i described the project to him. i mean, he didn't have to read the thing. i'm sure if he did, he'd know the truth of my deception.) i have to console myself with the thought that i am NOT the same person i was, attempting to study, two years ago. i may still have my issues, my blockades, but surely i've evolved. i can grasp the concept of a "discourse" and work within several different kinds. maybe i'll be even more capable when the time comes. maybe i'll (*gasp*) get smarter.

(the problem, of course, is that i feel like i've reached my limit.)

i have to remind myself of the days when i thought i was smart, back when i was 14, 15, 16 - even 18, and look at the writing i did then - the letters, the diaries - and cringe. a huge wake-up call was my early 8th grade English journal, and subsequent poetry assignment. god! i can't believe i vomited those words onto pages that people i respected, people who i wanted to impress, people i loved, would read!

but then again, i got an A for that terrible poetry. why? because i was 13, not 17, or 20, or 23. maybe i WAS ok for that age. maybe i AM ok for this age. maybe i have to stop thinking of myself as never-changing along this timeline. i mean, the evidence is right there. the evidence may even be right here, since i've kept this diary for almost 30 months.

i've been having recurring anxieties about aging. i see old people shuffling, and no different than usual, it pains me inside. but i realize my proximity to that state. ok, it might be 40 or 50 years from now, but that's closer than "45" or "55" years from now, as it used to be. i examined my face in the mirror and thought, 'one day, i'm going to have wrinkles. one day, this face will be quite different,' knowing that it really hasn't changed that much in texture and shape for a good ten years. the thought really sent me spinning. never mind all the talk that your metabolism slows after 25, and it becomes increasingly difficult to lose weight or even maintain weight - something that has been present in my life for at least 8 or 9 years...what, it gets even worse than this?

aging. death. angst.

who ever thought that accomplishment, graduation - an achievement - could cause such fear and worry...

shut up, me.