en gallop.

[starfrosting]

I really have to pee, but just really quickly:

-beautiful spring day. I know it's gonna get cold again, but all the mud and puddles are delightful, the sky is blue cool little wind and sunny sunny warm. mmmm.
-tobacco.
-Queer Theory, while somewhat annoying, had its good points, namely Jami's gender performativity diagram.
-talking about sex with Matt Kane is a delight.
-Keren and Drake and Brendan and Michelle? yay!!
-I did yoga today. not very rigorously, but still.
-I've been eating well too.
-The light air outside is making me glad to be alive. Overall this means I feel entirely content to put my fresh clean sheets on my bed and read for a little bit, for fun, and then dig into my work.

On the theme of work, ((Drake + Evren, yr advice was helpful in figuring this out, by the way :)) This in turn makes it difficult for me to push through various blocks I have, such as an inability to manage time + an aversion to studying. Also, having pride in my various areas of knowledge and ability to articulate my ideas- some of which I do think have potential to be developed in exciting ways- is something that sustains me---I just need to figure out how to not let it hold me back, how to not have ego invested to the point that it actually stops me from stepping back from my work and figuring out how to make it better. Here's where unwinding comes in, and really being rigorous about my work when I sit down to do it. We shall see.

On the other hand, I am carrying some feelings of dread around Phenomenology class tomorrow. Oh well.

Ooh, and going with my girl to see Schreier lecture about Algeria and Jews and France tonight--whee!

Comments

[nellynephew.livejournal.com]

Liv,

your self-awareness and ability to hear difficult things and find a path to acceptance (within 24 hours?) is astonishing. you are an extremely ambitious young genderqueer poet/academic who will write and do amazing things, i have NO DOUBTS.

d.

[taxishoes.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

In fact you're already writing and doing amazing things. So there.

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

teehee!
oh how i love encouragement.

+ okay, maybe not acceptance in 24 hours, but certainly a sort of focused awareness. i figure that's a place to start, right?

*grinning, unabashedly*
-Liv.

[strauss.livejournal.com]

I'd really like to hear more about the gender performativity diagram.
Also, I think I know what you mean by the ego and criticism thing. So much of my sense of self is bound up in "being smart," and being "good at school," so I really struggle with classes like Sign Language, where I suck.

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

I'd like to send you a copy, Zach, cos it's really priceless. If you email me w/yr mailing address I could hit it yr way. I can try explaining it but that wouldn't really be fun at all. Let's just say, it involves a box with an x in it to symbolize the fiction of substance. And yeah, so how do we go about dealing with this egostuff around 'being smart'? It's easier said than done, no?

[strauss.livejournal.com]

ooh, mail! Zach Strassburger, box 5229, 222 Church St, Middletown CT 06459. or you could come visit, like you and rk said you would do ages ago. isn't it rk's birthday soon? tell hir happy birthday for me.

and yeah, the ego stuff...is there a way to transfer it to being proud of the process, of being willing to work hard? obviously ego's not a very wonderful thing in the first place, but if we called it "self-confidence" instead...

[phlat.livejournal.com]

you and a certain 2hunnit RA both need to work on breaking down your "excellent/suck" binaries. they are not the only two options.

but dear...

[(Anonymous)]

...oli, you know that papers are not telling of your intellect, but only about your ability to articulate, right? No paper ever should make you question your obvious brilliance. And: would you not be disappointed to find out that as a sophomore college kid you are completely done with learning how to better express things? I think you would :)
I really understand how you feel, and I am taking a deep breath and saying it (because it is not direct encouragment, but hopefully the indirect effect will be felt): It is quite possible that a few years from now, you will read that Kierkegaard paper and probaby will blush. And then you'll be happy about how better you have gotten. One hopefully always gets better. All that is to say if you even remember writing this paper a few years from now ;)
And, there is always the possibility that your prof. does not know what s/he is talking about. I mean it very seriously.
Both of these scenarios have happened to me. I actually would hope for you that you are going through the first one ('cause it is much better to be not so good at some things yet than being the 'victim' of a crazy professor.)

Much love, and hope you are feeling better,
Ev.

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

Yes darling, I was thinking of you as I waded through these thoughts, and I agree with both the possibilities you've articulated (haha) above. I'm trying to take it in stride, and I'm glad that you came upon my, erm, academic drama after it'd already calmed down a bit. I'm trying to push my immediate impulse of "but I'm smart and that's obviously reflected by my grades!" aside in favor of, "I'm smart, and that implies learning." Imagine that ;).

resisting the impulse to write to you again this evening,
Oli.

[corium.livejournal.com]

olivia not thinking she's smart, pffffff. :)

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

aww :).

kerethentity.blogspot.com

[(Anonymous)]

I hear you. I don't take criticism that well on papers. But I've gotten better about it by learning to enter super-rational-zone when I know I'm about to get criticism-- the whole "this is not about how good or how flawed I am, this is a gift from the universe to help me get better, I'm allowed to disagree but I must do so on rational grounds" etc. It only helps when I'm ready for it, though.

I sometimes feel bruised on the messageboards. But I try to be superrational when I feel like I'm getting defensive. It may not be the healthiest way of doing things though.