Dictionary

I looked up the word 'scholar' in Webster today and didn't like what I found.

1 : a person who attends a school or studies under a teacher : PUPIL
2 a : a person who has done advanced study in a special field b : a learned person
3 : a holder of a scholarship

Numbers one and two, check. Three, no. I am indeed a person who attends a school or studies under a teacher; pupil, yep. I've also done advanced study in a special field and my family do refer to me as "a learned person" though never in that specific usage. Sadly I didn't qualify for a graduate scholarship but did during the undergrad years. So I guess all three do apply after all. What I find discouraging is the positivist tone of these definitions. Webster throws too wide a blanket over the term. I didn't throw in any qualifiers such as "failed" or "bad" but Webster did have an entry for the "Rhodes" variety. According to Webster, I am a scholar. As is my mom and a handful of friends. I know already that the dictionary isn't a great place to parse subjectivities but i'd like an antonym that had equal breadth of scope. "Idiot" doesn't really cut it.

A professor said a few weeks ago that my sentence contruction is masterful. Isn't that a strange word? Masterful. He followed up with noting that my essay construction, however, is pretty awful. It's weird. I think he's both right and wrong. To structure an essay is, for me, like killing a kitten. So repugnant that thinking about it opens me up to moral culpability. My sentences aren't very good either. Can I make a sentence without using a 'to be' verb? Only sometimes. Maybe he meant 'masterful' in that my sentences follow the Subject Verb Predicate model. That's nice. Those stars earned in fourth grade were worth it.

About half an hour ago I had the first suicidal thought in near a month. I knew when it happened because a weird feeling came over me and I looked at the clock. It was 559p. In this month I've not felt self-destructive. Which is good. People notice that I "seem" better, and that's nice too. I've had meaningful conversations with professors. My personal relationship also seems strengthened. That's good, too. Everything is great. What threads the bad times together with the good times is my utter lack of production. I've not written a motherfucking thing! I'm soooo academic. When I feel suicidal, I don't write because what a great excuse to not do so. I'm suicidal and deserve to do little or nothing. Look at me, everybody. I have mental problems that are solved with medication. Don't expect anything of me, okay? Because I am mentally fucking retarded. Summaries? Drafts? Abstracts? Outlines? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm on legalised drugs! Everybody knows I'm about to have a nervous breakdown so why not allow me to do absolutely zero and get away with it? When I feel better I'll get right back to work. Except that, here's the punchline, I won't! Haha. Jokes on you. I'll be too happy paying my bills, getting coffee, reading Victorian novels and catching up on celebrity gossip to write anything of value. It's pretty hilarious when you think about it. I'm not stupid but neither will I do any work. I'm not lazy either, rather, mired in a morass of self-doubt. Why write a masterful sentence when the paragraph will be shaped like a donkey's dick? Why write an essay that has logical holes larger than Peyton Manning's head?

Webster needs a new term. It has to be somewhere between the group Lazy, Apathetic and Stupid and Analytical, Productive and Honest. If that word really doesn't exist, let's invent one. How about Martinia? See, Martin is my last name and Martinia sounds vaguely like a Roman whorehouse. so it's perfect. Somebody that's smart but also incapable of doing anything worthwhile with them there smarts will be a Martiniac. Do you know a really clever person who plays Nintendo all day? Have him or her call me so that we can talk about the New York Times and trade Pokemon. We'd be best friends. Last year a friend of mine whose ex-husband is from South Africa told me that she had learned more about South Africa from me in a year that her ex in several. Haha. No doubt she thought it was a compliment but not really. What she did though is put her finger on a glaring truth: that I am the mental equivalent of a wombat, "a lumbering, herbivorous animal that lives in burrows in dense forests and eucalyptus woodlands, eating grasses, leaves and roots. They are the marsupial equivalent of the pig." Haha. And do you know what? Wombats are run over by cars. They're too fucking slow to get out of the way so cars will literally drive over them because to wait for them to cross the road will make the driver late to work. So simply run them over and congratulate yourself on ridding the world of something to fucking slow and stupid to get out of the way. Oh. Maybe Webster doesn't need a new word after all. Wait, yes it does. People wouldn't like being called a wombat and besides, my description for Martiniac is pretty good.

I've noticed that in six years my (real) job has consistently rewarded me for my professional excellence. I keep getting raises and bonuses. Couldn't tell you why. My job does not require critical thinking *OR* production of tangible proof. In other words, I don't have to justify my existence --- so, i don't! And I get paid a lot! Yay capitalism! I have zero incentive to be creative, so I don't. At the university I'm asked to produce analytical work -- but I don't, yet I continue to survive in the program. Congratulations all you recent MA recipients, you've just earned a degree where someone as retarded as me can exist and waste valuable resources. Who cares about Harvard, anyway? Not me. They're too clever to even consider me so I don't them. It's very egalitarian. Did you see that 5 dollar word right there? Egalitarian. I can use that word and sound smart but, really, I can't define it. I know it has something to do with fairness but, pft, fuck; I use it, people get it, I slip under the radar again. I am a stealth-bomber!

You know who I admire? The killer from the film Seven. Kevin Spacey is a pretty creepy guy anyway. Killing is pretty ridiculous, so that's not the inspiration for my admiration. You know the scene where the cops get into Spacey's apartment and the black cop is reading his journals? A shit-ton of notebooks filled with words without dates. He says it'd take cops a hojillion years (or something like that) to read the contents of the killer's thoughts. That's some goddamned solid work ethic right there. This guy kills people and still finds time to write --- for himself! Shit. I can't find time to clean my cat's litter box let alone clean it, deodorize it and then write two pages about my day. See, I'm telling you. I should not be a graduate student.

I've a feeling that I'll regret posting this. There's a lot of stuff I'm embarrassed about. Walking back from my car a while ago I remembered promising a professor that I'd mail to him a draft of a paper I still owe him from a year ago. Let that sink in. A *DRAFT* of a paper due a whole year ago. Now that it's sunk in, let me tell you that i've still not written the draft. Hahah. Not a thing. It's like I'm the superman of stupid. Look up in the sky, it's stupid superman. He's hanging out playing NintendoDS. Wasn't he supposed to be speaking at a conference in Boston? Oh, who cares. He's stupid superman!

Friday. Start!

It's the beginning of the long, Memorial Day weekend.
I'll be at the office the entire time. My friend/colleague has gone on
vacation leaving me to cover. That's fine. Plenty of quiet, potential work hours.
To help get into the right mood I put down hourly goals onto a post-it note. Here's what I have for today, Friday:
7p - wash face
8p - photocopy articles
9p - write in blog(s)
10p - take diet pills

So far, so good! It's 9p and i'm on track to successfully completing my tasks. Having said that I've not done any academic reading, thinking or writing today. I'd like to blame the noise and rattle of the office cleaning crew. But, no. My own laziness. A headache's been quietly storming the gates in the last few hours. That could be keeping me from serious mental anything.

Tomorrow my goals are a lot less (or more?) lofty. Three hours on each project for a total of six academic-hours in the larger 10-hr industrial work day here at JCI. In three hours I know how much I can accomplish. What I need is some way to psych myself for the work ahead. Some cheerleader for positive attitude. Now that I've written down my goal in a public, not-easy-to-ignore space it's not an option to later give excuses. C'mon Don! You're not dumb.

Reading about the profession does not make you a professional.

NO FAIR! NOOOOOOO!!
NO FAIR NO FAIR NO FAIR! ACK!
I'm the cute-but-demon kid from "Pet Sematary" after being killed by my daddy: no fair, no fair!

Three hours ago I logged into Blogger to write this post. Instead, I've been reading "Rate My Students" blog.
For three hours I avoided writing both my academic stuff and this blog --- about writing my academic stuff. Somebody, somewhere give me credit for good intentions. Or extend the pavement on this slow road to hell.

Why does writing have to suck so hard? My undergrad adviser said (to herself, though I was in the room only 4 feet from her face) "writing is so much fun. it's the research that I hate". Okay. Now, let's flip those adjectives and try empathising with Mr Martin. Research? SPACE CAMP AWESOME! Writing? Meh. Writing is like getting bad Thai food. By virtue of its Siamese-ness, the food rules; but, if its bad you eat it anyway because it's Thai food and Thai food is awesome. Repeat. Writing really is wonderful, I know this already. It sharpens or discredits ones ideas, puts your mind into the intellectual sandbox where the other minds are losing contact lenses or scraping off boogers in the nearby grass. You know, fun! But, shit. I can't get excited about the sandbox. Especially bad is knowing how much fun being in that sandbox can be. Imagine that your whole (well, reasonable adult) life you went ape-shit over pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving, oh man. Fuck football. Pie. Then around your 28th birthday you're like "meh, i'll pass on the pie" and your relatives give a look more appropriate to your announcing "10 bucks that my vagina is as soft as Karen Peterson's, the 4th grader down the block."

I used a lot of metaphors up there.

Don't question me.

The law requires I write something immediately upon creating the blog.
We Russians believe in affirming and living the law. I'm not Russian.

But i'm gonna! Write. Not be Russian.