on the brink

i would never have believed this if you had told me before. but i am inches away from failing my classes. no really. in fact at current i am failing. hard to swallow. i've never failed at anything important in my life and here i am confused and scared. i just want to get this degree, pack up and move home to a place where things make sense. it isn't that britain doesn't make sense but this university doesn't.

the professors don't like the papers i am turning in and they are the only grade i get. if i was in another major this grade i have right now would be passing. but the arts faculty for some reason has higher standards.

do you want to know how this goes? i can explain it to you. the british grading system runs only to about 78. there are rumors that sometimes people get an 80 in which case you're in line for sainthood apparently and even rarer stories told in hushed corners of a room where people have gotten an 82. that's probably grounds for diefication. anyway i have to have a mark of a 60 to pass (which sounds really wierd to american ears but it's a B for our standards). most of the other majors here only need a 50. evil twits. anyway.

my first paper i got a 60. which distressed me, but i was assured it's not a bad mark. my second paper i got a 58. do the math i have an average of 59 i am currently failing. i don't know what to do. i've turned in my third paper (there are four) and i'm crossing my fingers for about a 63.

here's the catch. what is the obvious advice here? go talk to your professors, sarah, i'm sure they will help you on your next paper. the reality of this is slightly less clear. my professors are not allowed to help us with our papers except in some sort of abstract sense. they can give us some ideas for books and tell us whether they think the idea is going to work or not but that is really the extent of it. because? well that professor that is giving us the advice just might be one of the two to grade the paper. and we can't have that can we? that would be unfair.

so i'm writing these papers with the help of my husband which is great but this is just as much of a learning process for him as it is for me. i'm bringing in a bit of a legion to help with the last one. couple kids on the course, that sort of thing...

i can blame the 58 on the fact that my lung was collapsed (though undiagnosed) at the time and i was in pain and sick. and this next one i have already turned in (but haven't gotten a grade back on yet) was written between hospital visits and while i was on pain killers but that doesn't matter. anyone who has turned in papers knows this... it doesn't matter if aliens were landing in your back yard while you were typing... you wrote what you wrote and your grade is your grade. end of story.

so that's it. that's me. a big waste of time and money.

the only thing i have learned from all of this is that this is not what i want to do. i don't care about byron and shelley (not really) and especially not wordsworth, coleridge, hazlitt, lamb and all the rest. the can go fuck themselves (which they probably did...well byron and shelley anyway).

nope and what do i want to do? you won't believe me if i told you. holocaust studies. yep...that's a good slant for cute little ol' me isn't it? what you all would have expected, eh? i thought so. i'm serious though. i don't know why i've been avoiding it all these years. it should have been obvious to me by looking at the books i wanted to read while i was busy reading all the books for class. but i wasn't thinking that far. i had made the choice to get an MA in romanticism and that was what i was going to do. and the thing is this...if i wasn't so unhappy with this course i might never know that. i might be doing splendidly and ready to apply for my PhD in this right now. but i know that isn't what i want anymore...which is good.

the pain this little ephiphany is going to cost me is not quite what i want to deal with though. i have relatives who are professors who already think i'm an idiot let alone after this. i have relatives that have given me money to help me towards this goal what on earth are they going to think now? and i have friends who never thought i should have come over here in the first place and if they choose to remind me that they thought this whole thing was a bad idea i may have to kill them. this is hard enough on me right now without dealing with all that.

i just want this degree. i want to get it over with and get on with things. get on with the rest of my life and never deal with wordsworth again.

i am terrified.

i would be so embaressed if this doesn't work out. val made this look so easy. so did jude. and here i am bumbling through like a complete fool. i realize my professors aren't helping me but i shouldn't need them. i should be better than that. i've always been smart enough and this is not the reality call i was envisioning. this is painful. this is not wondering if i was going to have to live with a B in Lidh's class or if i was going to get an A. this is major, this is making me look like a fool. and i sit here with tears in my eyes wondering if i will ever give anyone the address to this page and let them read what is really happening over here. because the letters i am sending sure don't sound like this. my parents know...i told them...they are supportive. it's just knowing that i am so much more of an idiot than i ever wanted people to know.

i really am dumb and i can't hide it anymore. this is just it. me. without the frills. i can't cut it. and that's about to become painfully obvious when jesse goes on to write his thesis and i just sit about and well...write...i guess.

i really feel like my whole life is out of control. my mind isn't as sharp as i thought it was and hell even my body doesn't work anymore. it's all just coming a part and i don't have anything to hold it together anymore. i'm out of glue and i don't have any string strong enough.

my parents and the only other person i've told about this (other than jesse) peter reminds me how lucky i am to have jesse. and they're right i am. and in ten years when i've got a career and none of this matters i'll just be happy to have him and won't even be thinking about this. and isn't that nice. but that is not where i am right now. right now...i have sunk about as low as i can and if i let myself i would just sit about and cry and feel sorry for myself and throw my hands up. i can never do this so i might as well bow out now when it still feels like my choice rather than my professor telling me that he's pulling me out.

but i just can't do that. and if i don't try then i guess i really would be stupid. but i don't think i am quite as dumb as they think i am. i think i can pull something out of all this. and if i can't then i suppose i'll leave that for then. i have to do this...pull something together here. i don't know how. i apparently don't know how to write so i'm not sure what will change for this next paper.

well cross your fingers for me...i don't even have a topic yet.

-sarah

hello

hello. this is something i have decided to do for myself because i think i need it. it will give me the opportunity to ramble endlessly and not bother people on livejournal. i don't think many people will read this (though there are a few i hope will) and that doesn't much matter. i need to put this stuff down somewhere.

so that is that, welcome.

-sarah