teethofthehydra

I finished my paper. It's pretty good I think. I'm stoked. Also bummed a little bit because today was stressful. I went to see one of my professors whose class I assumed I was failing because he wanted to talk about my paper (different paper), which I assumed, too, was a failure. In fact the paper was excellent, he said, one of the best he had ever read that was written by an undergrad. The writer of the paper, he alleged, ought to be a professional. The only question was, had I actually written it? I mean, he kind of assumed I was a failure (not his fault, I was being a pretty big failure) and then I hand in this, I guess, fantastic paper. He could only assume plagiarism. Which wasn't the case. I wrote the goddamn paper. The morning it was due. By my fucking unaided self. I told him so and he believed me, but I still felt like an asshole. I don't always feel very smart and sometimes when people catch me doing something that is smart and they call me on it I feel weird. I wish I could recognize it in myself and it's kind of embarassing to feel as dumb as I do most of the time when I suppose it's not true. I can't change the way I feel though. Anyway it's hard to explain, also boring and not very important. The moral of the story is that I spent the whole morning crying in frustration about how I wish I had more self-confidence regarding my intelligence, that I could act the way people expect me to given the quality of the academic work I produce. I don't know how to fake it though. I wouldn't know how to begin acting like a seriously dedicated intelligent person if my life fucking depended on it.

I also went out for sushi and ran into this regular from the strip club. It's always a little funny when I see a customer outside of work. "Hello," I almost feel compelled to say, "You have, in fact, seen me naked."