Tag Archives: portfolio

The blog post is coming from inside the bathtub.

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So, Gail finally came back from North Carolina. We hadn’t hung out in a week, exactly, and I was getting the shakes. She quickly pointed out, however, that that might have been for another reason entirely.

Me: “I found the best blog while you were gone. You should have read this at your dead grandma’s funeral. It would have been a lot better.”
Gail: “Wow. I can tell you haven’t really been sleeping lately.”
Me: “Whatwhy?”
Gail: “Because the less you sleep, the faster you talk.”
Me: “Huh. Iguess I hadn’t reallythought aboutit. I didgoto bed ataround 3:00, 2:30 lastnight?”
Gail: “And got up at, what, 7:00?”
Me: “Um. Yeahactually.”

I’ve since realized that I must just be really stressed over the whole graduate portfolio thing… so much so that I needed Gail to tell me so. That might also be why I haven’t been eating. Is that not the coolest fucking stress reaction ever? I get a Masters degree or my life is over and I get skinnier?!?!? So it begins… my stress-induced insanity. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the summer of 2011 required I be medicated from a concussion to get any sleep during finals. The spring semester of 2012 ended with me propped up on a bunch of pillows, trying to drown out all distractions as I worked on my final project… from behind the closed shower curtain in my empty bathtub… sucking my thumb and crying. Seriously. If you’re thinking about getting a master’s degree: stop it. The thing is… that was in May. It’s fucking February, y’all. I deliver my portfolio in mid-April and I have already taken up my post in the empty bathtub, where my blog can apparently still distract me. Psh. Whatev. I only care about the ends. Fuck the means. Apparently, Gail and I have funnier conversations when I’m high on exhaustion and we haven’t hung out for a week. We had a late lunch (a side salad for me) and visited the art supply store today.

Gail: referring to demands on her time “They all get a piece of Gail.”
Me: “We’ve known that for years now.”

Me: “I’ll give you $5 to bark mid-orgasm the next time you have sex with Terry.”
Gail: laughing “It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm…”
Me: laughing hysterically “Can I quote you on that?!?! ‘It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm.’ Abigail Frederickson.”
Gail: “That’s not what I meant!”
Me: “It’s not like I can control whether or not I bark mid-orgasm. Really, though, Gail… can any of us?!? That’s going on your dad’s quote of the day calendar.”
I’ve been threatening to make this calendar for ages.

huge mirror

Me: “Why would you want this one? Is it for when you get really fat and tall?”
Gail: “I like the really sizable ones. Okay, get ready to say ‘We’ve known that for years now.’ I like them sizable.”

pretty bathroom

Gail: “Why would you hang a picture in your bathroom of a prettier bathroom?”
Me: “Maybe you could get a couple of the mega mirrors and make it look like you are in that bathroom.”

not plush egg

Me: “Oh, my gosh, these look like they should be plush and I just felt a moment of complete rage when I realized they weren’t.”
Gail: “You’re insa… oh, my gosh, they do look plush.”

glitter testicle

Me: “Ohmygosh. I have the strongest urge to just go all out and decorate for Easter in glitter testicles.”

Me: “That beef jerky had better be made out of fucking unicorn meat for $10. I doubt you could eat unicorn meat, though. It seems like it would be like polar bear meat and just be toxic to your system, because it’s mythical and you’d die.”
Gail: “Wait. What? You can’t eat polar bear meat? Says who?”
Me: “Everyone. That’s like a thing everyone just knows.”
Gail: “No it isn’t.”
Me: “Yes it is. Just because you don’t know it, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t know it.”
I google it, because smartphones are bomb.
Me: making a placating guesture with my hand “Polar bear liver. I’m sorry.”
Gail: incorrectly imitates hand motion “What, is that some kind of ‘nuh-huh!’ gesture?”
Me: “No. That’s ‘calm yourself’. But see. I was right and you’re just stupid. You die if you eat polar bear…” :drop voice to a whisper: “livers.”
.
still scrolling through phone
.
“Polar bears aren’t able to force geese into extinction and science is really upset about it! Or they’re taking note of it. I guess it doesn’t elaborate on their feelings. They should be upset about it. Wait. If polar bears are some kind of natural predators to geese, we need to get us some fucking polar bears up in here!”
Gail: “Oh, my God. Are you listening to yourself? You are insane when you haven’t been sleeping. ‘We need to get some fucking polar bears up in here!'”

I have an intense Once-Cried-at-the-Zoo-at-Age-23 fear of birds, particularly geese. We have too many fucking geese here.

Fuck. I am being super unproductive. Even in the bathtub.

studying in bathtub
Where might one come by some cocaine?

Mushroom Cloud Over Madison

Aside

I’ve been feeling a bit agoraphobic for the last day or two. Gail tried to diagnose me with social anxiety disorders that she Googled* and I told her to shake her rat bones at someone else, insisting that psychology is a bunch of voodoo witchcraft. In actuality, I completely believe in the effectiveness of psychology, which is why it freaks me the hell out. I don’t want anyone cracking open my skull and taking a shit in it. Despite my discomfort, I went to Mass today, wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt, which I never do (dresses, usually). I huddled into my coat the entire time thinking about how if I transformed into a lion, I could run out. I’m not sure why that required being a lion, since I did, in fact, leave immediately after Communion.

*She majored in pyschology for the most annoying week and a half, so that’s an exaggeration, for which she’ll call me a bitch. As a matter of fact, she’ll call me a bitch for this side note too.

I’m just still not in a good place over my academic set-back. I’ve convinced myself, somehow, that this lessens my chances of ever being a librarian, regardless of my future success on the portfolio. The rational part of me knows that the job market hasn’t changed in the last week and won’t in the next six months. The irrational part of me, however, is still crying in bewilderment over a ridiculously large Old Chicago cookie about how the only life left for me must reside in the virtual world. Huh. Just made the connection from that to this blog. Ultimately, I know that I’ve been in worse places in life. Gail herself said “Hey. Look on the bright side. You’re not married.” Damn. Fucking. Straight. But it’s still a crushing blow for me. I don’t fail at things. I do a little less than expected and cry my eyes out over it, but I don’t actually fail.

ward - foot in mouth
Yeah. He did.

If it seems exaggerative, that’s a text from my friend, Ward, who has seen me in tears over a B or the infamous 98.5% assignment. I still haven’t told my guy friends about my delayed graduation. I kind of plan to avoid telling them and then just swear it was May the whole time. They’ll know something happened and that I can’t talk about it without crying and making them uncomfortable because they have penises. Win/win.

After a day of laying around in leggings and an oversized t-shirt, reading blogs and trashy supernatural romance novels, I got this super encouraging E-mail from my professor. He told me he looks forward to my re-presentation (word I made up) and that he’s sure I’ll do great. Either my portfolio defense wasn’t as bad as it seemed, or my instructors think I’m about to swan dive from the top of the college library after E-mailing to promise them that I’m going to re-read everything ever. It’s likely the latter, because I’m absolutely certain that a mushroom cloud went up over Madison as I gave that awful presentation. Then, first born sons mysteriously died. There was even a run on the banks for some reason. It was really bad.

Regardless, my professors don’t want to kill my spirit, and that’s what I took out assloads of loans for, am I right?!?! Honestly, I think they have faith I’ll do well. They wouldn’t be encouraging me to present in March if they didn’t, when I can have up to a year to prepare. Even I know I’ll fix this, deep down. But I still have these fits of “WHAT IF I DON’T?!?!?” Being a librarian is all I want. I went through so much to get here and I might lose it. I have no backup. I want no backup. The idea of not being able to do this job breaks my heart.

I feel like my whole life has stalemated until I pass this. I’ve decided to give up dating until I’ve graduated. That’s partly an excuse, just because I’m REALLY bad at it, but it’s still a distraction I can’t afford. I don’t have time for funny bad dates. Nor do I have time to hit it off with someone who demands a substantial chunk of my life. School. Career. Then boys.


That time I tried to be sexy…

I wish I could just cope with this adjustment and move on. I wish I could just get excited that I only have one more class left. I wish the stress would stop taking root in the form of feeling naked when I’m in public. Tomorrow’s the start of a new week, I suppose. At least I’ve come down from my promise that I’d only dedicate an hour a day to entertainment and the rest would be to studying. I’m too obsessive a person for this.

Gail: “Get out your laptop and fix this.”

I’m clinging to those words.