Anxiety

Actually don't read this. Originally I started writing this and it evolved into something else. I was going to erase it but I decided I spent to long of a time writing it for it to complete disappear, I should at least get some class credit for my wasted time.

I am going through something that I can not truly define or understand. Self imposed writers block? Lately, I have not been able to write. Well I have been able to write but, very little. I have been spending a very exorbitant amount of time trying to phrase things perfectly, then after that, being extra extra critical everything is perfect. Relevance of the statement, grammar, accordance with everything else, the flow and pace of everything. This is an odd situation for me because normally I don't even care about grammar, I spend more time on making things sound flashy.

I think this started when I worked my ass off for an in class writing assignment and got a 77. I then proceeded to do my finest work on the re-write, have it proofread by a very credible source and then only received an 87, this brought my overall grade to an 82. I can't get B- on anything. My life is crashing down. I keep getting B- to B+ on everything, I don't need B's I need a A's. My life is depending on this. Because i 'screwed the pooch' last semester I have to overachieve to balance out those horrible grades. I need to get into Grad school, and a 2.5 isn't doing much for me. I think 2.75 is the absolute minimum and most schools are a 3. I feel useless, like everything i put on paper isn't good enough. But I can't give up like I use to when I was younger, because this is my life. If I give up, I am giving up on my future, and what am I going to do then?

The other day i spent 14 hours in the library (not straight, I left for a little, not bragging either, the point is how pathetic I am). I don't understand where the time went or how i even stayed that long because when I am in my room I can barely spend 2 hours doing work most of the time, sometimes I can't even start. Anyway the point is, after doing extensive research and outlining and brainstorming, 14 hours later I had 3 pages of writing (double spaced). How is that even possible? I don't know where the time went. It has since gone to a blur but I can imagine it was anxiety filled. I am so scared I don't even want to write my ideas down. I feel they are so bad that if I write them they will be crap and I will just be editing crap. I need to wait for better ideas, then I can edit and work on those. But the brilliant insight never comes. My writing is horrible and failing and I am going no where. I am going to wind up working at Mcdonalds pretending that it is part time taking courses at csi and probably telling myself I am going to be a famous director someday. Don't get me started on that topic though.

Why am I such a paradox? I love that school is hard, it makes me apply myself and I love that. But why with every ounce of me do I wish it wasn't hard so I wouldn't be in this situation?

All my friends (at home...I dont have any friends here) are incredibly smart. I purposely surround myself with brilliant people, hoping maybe they will make me more articulate or I can learn from them, osmosis or something. But where has it gotten me? I am a junior at a State School and I have a gpa close to my age. My best friends go2 Upenn, Princeton, Harvard, and St. joe's. I don't even wanna compare our gpa's.

The only way I could ever fail my parents is by giving up, and that is exactly what I am doing. I can not commit myself to finishing this paper. And even if I do, it's going to be crap. I am useless and I hate this school and f*cking coma splice's and fused sentences. i never learned that crap before, but here let me take off 20 points because those are serious errors, oh and because you are a marginal writer.

Listen, I am a good writer, I am not a C writer. Maybe in this anal drained creativity society that we call Cortland I am a crappy writer, but...You know what I am a sh*tty writer.

I use to write kids papers in high school. $20 a paper. I'd say, hey what do you want? An 85? ok, i'd write it based on the kids previous performance, the extent of his vocabulary and i'd normally get within 3 points. I personally would always get high 90's. Then I got to delhi and those high 90's turned to low 90's. But that matched with class participation was decent. The grading of other things were always the great equalizer, killing my chance at ever doing exceptionally well. What am I even writing about? Oh, yea, I am writing about not being able to write. See I am typing these words a mile a minute, on my white keyboard, but if I was to move the cursor off blogger onto Pages (mac version of Microsoft office) nothing would happen. Parallel plots of Lear and Gloucester, who cares. I am just going to get killed on the final anyway. Wow, a B- for all your work. Then throw in your wonderful Sociology grade and 2other classes and the Graduate school at Wagner College is going to be knocking my door down with acceptance letters and scholarship information. A school in Pennsylvania wanted to give me a scholarship last year. For track, not for academics. I turned them down flat, didn't even talk to the coach. And St. Rose's Coach wanted to talk to me also, that was more of a favor though. I didn't give him the light of day either. And now look at me. 20lbs heavier, run about once a week. Man I remember when the Delhi coach was recruiting me, man he was excited to get a hold of me and get me on that 4x4 relay. And they ran here last weekend and we all reminisced and had good times, talking about the good old days. How then I had everything, a girlfriend I loved, a team full of friends (family more then just friends, true family, we were together 7 days a week). Now, well let's not talk about now.

There is a science to this world. A math, a plan, some kind of passed down game plan. I was thinking about this before. Why does every bad movie have a cheesie sentimental ending tying everything together? Why does the hero always get the girl? Win the game? Why does the shallow popular girl see something extraordinary in the geeky guy, and vice versa. There is a document of success out there, and if you get a hold of it you follow it. (Not being specific to this one topic) Why is How High a movie? A group of people gave millions of dollars for the production (Executive producers) then people who probably got over a 1500 on their SAT, went to the finest college for free and excelled: directed it/wrote it/did the cinematography/edited it. Hundreds of people finely tuned at their jobs dedicated months of their life for this production. And what was the result, a movie about 2 kids that smoke their dead friend and get into Harvard cause they get a 1600 (Harvard also being very sympathetic to the recent addition of Affirmative action). And movies this bad come out every month. And we as a people support this. Oscar winners are #3 at the box office behind movies that get under a 6.0 on imdb. Because Ashton Kutcher is in it they have to go see it (ok you were kinda badass in Butterfly effect i'll give you that).

So in the end what I think I am trying to say is: because of people like Will Richardson and Friedman and Hobbs, a social outlet is out there for people like me who need to vent, and in a school related setting. That this social networking systems are truly revolutionizing the classroom and that web 2.0 the read write web is truly making things better and motivating students in ways like never before.