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!
