Le Sigh

Well, my rough draft and bibliography are sent. Brace yourselves for a whole new wave of condescension, with the attendant complaining on my part.

Stikes again

Background: We left it that I would send my work over the weekend, with a meeting to discuss on Tuesday morning. He told me to send it by Monday, and since I have class all morning, I have been planning to (and will) send it by tonight. I just got these two emails:

Hello Jane:

I understand how busy you have been with your recital, so I am giving you an extension on this deadline, but please keep in mind we really need to see considerable progress on your project soon, especially since you plan to be gone for the next two weeks and your final project will be posted online for all the world to see.

I am hoping to receive your outline and annotated bibliography by noon tomorrow.

I look forward to reading it.

Followed less than a minute later by:

Hello Jane:

Actually, by Monday at 7pm will be okay for me.

How necessary were either of these two emails? Let the record also reflect the fact that the only reason I'm missing two classes in a row is that he scheduled an additional class on what was supposed to be a no-class day. So is there any way to tactfully get across the fact that I'm not actually an irresponsible student, when the problem is in fact his own perceptions and lack of clear communication?

Well, crap.

So...I don't think I want to be a musicologist. Now what?

P.S.

As an addendum to why this week apparently sucks, between 10pm last night when I left work and 11:30am this morning when I went to retrieve my leftover pad thai for lunch, someone had decided to liberate it from the fridge, whether to eat it or throw it away I don't know. What is wrong with these people? Why can't you just leave my food alone? I'm hungry.

Squinty Eyed Anger

I have complained about my Wednesday night class before. The teacher treats us like we're children, not grad students. He uses phrases such as: "Please come prepared to represent BU's graduate program to the rest of the world" (when we had a guest lecture) and "I can see that you have potential, but I didn't see that here" (when his unclear instructions caused me to turn in something "rougher" than he wanted). For christ's sake, I'm 24. When I said, "well, I apologize. I didn't fully understand what you were asking for, and there has been so much changing of the schedule that I was also a little unclear as to what was due when. I'm happy to work with you to give you what you were looking for," he said, "the due dates never changed." And then, "well, you are ultimately responsible for how well you do in this class, I'm just trying to help you." Passive aggressive, much? This brings me to a larger problem here, which is that, since coming here, I have spent quite a bit of time suppressing my rage and fighting the urge to do physical damage to people and objects. Not that I ever would, or could do that, but this is not conducive to learning. Clearly, I am sitting here fuming 24 hours after that little chat, unable to concentrate on the work I apparently didn't do a week ago. The fact that he thought he needed to sit me down and talk to me about my "performance" in the class, rather than discuss with me the questions that I had included when I submitted the document in question (i.e. "Please let me know if this is not what you were looking for, as I have been a little unclear on this assignment") drives me crazy. It's like he only knows what to do with a problematic student, so he's decided I am one. This might be a decent time to add that the project in question basically ethnography, in that we have to go out into Boston to look at a local, current music-making. Fascinating, I'm sure. But I'm not an ethnomusicologist for a reason, and this is not an ethnomusicology class. I don't enjoy interviewing people, and I don't enjoy being condescended to. Between him, Marty, and money, I'm this close to telling this place to shove it. I came for graduate level education and quasi-professional experiences, not high school quality "academic guidance" and narrow minded artistic direction. People keep telling me to just grin and bear it, but am I really such a reactionary pain in the ass to object to this kind of thing in a program I'm paying to attend?

Thunder! Lightning!

I love thunderstorms. They remind me of...things. Lots of things. My mom, first of all, and our house on 124th Street where I used to go play in the puddle that the driveway became after a storm. I'm pretty sure I had a raincoat that I loved, or boots or something. Those are foggy but strong memories. We used to walk to a deli/convenience store nearby for ice cream etc in the summer. The place was called Beck's Deli, which my mom always called Deck's Belly. One time we were walking home, and it started to thunder. I was probably 7 or 8. I wasn't afraid of thunderstorms, but I yelped and hollered, "Lightniiiing!" and grabbed my mom's arm. I was probably trying to be funny. She started laughing hysterically, and so did I, and from then on, even all through high school and into college, "Lightniiing!" was yelped to herald almost every storm. Thunderstorms also remind me of summers in Oberlin and walking home to East Lorain after being at the Feve. The rain almost always stopped by then, and the walk home was shiny, not soggy. And they remind me of Kinhaven, where the daily thunderstorm moved in so quickly over the hills that you didn't even see it coming until it was mostly over. You still got drenched, though. I love storms, but they make me nostalgic.

What, Faye always looks like that!

If I didn't love xkcd, questionable content, and dinosaur comics before today, I would now.

In other news, I now have 7 new books to read for fun. And one big old reading assignment for class on Wednesday. Boo on school!