honeysuckle17

Two days ago, I had my end of year interview. When I came home, I cried. I finally allowed myself to acknowledge how difficult this year has been.

When I walked through hyde park to get home, I kept thinking about what Lacan says about how a baby has to enter into the realm of the symbolic and start using language. He has to speak to tell his mother what he wants, or he will die. And this is a traumatic experience.

I feel like I relived that moment this year. I became so accustomed to not speaking, in class, in social situations, and even in relationships, and this year I realized that my academic career and my relationship would end if I didn't start to speak. But expressing myself is not a part of my habitus, and remolding my body to make it one that is compelled to speak is a painful process.

I was telling Emily that, sometimes, when I hang out at the mezzanine at school, I cannot even undersand the conversations that go on between people, let alone contribute to them. It's like people are speaking another language.

I try to give myself explanations--that t's difficult because it's graduate school, or because i'm not used to the quarter system, or because i spent my whole life in the public school system and now i'm at one of the most academically rigorous schools in the country, or because i'm a minority, or because of my class position, or because of my anxiety issues, or because i have such a passive mother and became just like her...

I don't know. I know there's a possibility that I'm just not as smart as the other kids, but I don't really think that is the case.

I just wanted to document some of my frustration. I tend to always look on the bright side and remember everything cheerfully. I want to be able to tell my students what it was really like.

Right now I am much happier. I'm at the D'Angelo Law library because Em needed some obscure law books about pornography for her project. Campus was beautiful today. Everything is green, and all of the gothic buildings are covered in vines. A duck in the pond next to the quad watched Em and me kiss on the little bridge on our way to the Regenstein Library.

I'm writing a paper about Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha, proper objects, and transgendered people. It's coming out pretty easily, which is amazing, since the writing of my Foucault and Althusser paper has been as painful as pulling teeth. Wait...I dig pain in my mouth, so that's not a very good simile. It's been as painful as pulling teeth *for most people*.

Anyway, I've got to get back to my paper. I love being at the library all day. It makes me feel like a more valuable person. But I am so fucking ready to get drunk and dance around as soon as possible.