written 10/17/1999
I was so pissed at her! I mean, her job used to be to help me get the courses I wanted (among other things). And she used to be a student in this program too! She always gave me the feeling that she was doing as little as possible for me (and for the other students in the program as well) or even when she was helping, she always did it with as little emotional investment as possible. So I looked at her and said “Oh, it’s okay, I don’t know you if it helps”. I guess it did….
Anyway, class was called off for 10 minutes so they could deal with the 4 people who were there but had not signed up properly. Each one was called into the room with the Prof. And the 2 aides (Daffy the counselor and another one) and each one came out of there crying. I was last, and I promised myself that when I got there I would NOT cry. Over a university course? – Come on! So I went inside and started telling my side of the story (“I tried to sign up on time but As usual the secretaries didn’t know where I belonged and tried to throw me down the stairs, so like I do every year I tgalked to the head of the program….”) You could see that the poor Psych. Prof. was getting kind of uncomfortable, but she said that the course was organized in a way that each student leads one lesson, and that means a limited amount of people, and that if they accepted me now, they would have to take out someone else. I could see her point – it was way easier to her to be unfair to me than to some random person from the group, even if it was the same level of unfairness. If I were her I’d do the same. It was doomed. So I started bargaining for next year – that they would at least save me a place for next year or give me a guarantee that I would be considered equally to everyone else. By this time my voice was shaking as I said things like “I just want to be treated fairly, and get the same chances as anyone else” (I don’t know why I have to find myself saying things like that, when the university is supposed to WANT me to study there. Why do I get a scholarship? To not be able to get into any of the courses?) I tried harder not to cry than to actually get the course. When I left the room I just burst into tears, and I just wanted to scream: “It’s NOT because of you and your stupid course! It’s just because my life is so damn UNEXITING now, and I MUST find something about school to hang on to, so I’ll feel that, after all, I am in the right place….”
After crying in the bathroom for 5 minutes I decided to go to a seminar in Consumer Behavior that I had meant to delay until next year because of the damn course I was kicked out of. It gave me a nice feeling to know I had somewhere to go. There were even some people there I knew from last year. So the Prof. comes in and says “First of all I’d like to ask all of you, why did you take this course?” and people say “We’re interested in Consumer behavior”. So he goes “Well, this course is not about consumer behavior, it’s about statistical models of consumer behavior” and the SOB miles a big smile while the rest of the class erase theirs…. I ‘d thought my day couldn’t get worse! I looked at the syllabus, and it looked at me, and told me that there was no way I could study consumer behavior without knowing this shit. The Prof. was starting to talk, and tears were starting to re-form in my eyes. Can you picture that? The Prof. saying: “Well, lets discuss the five axioms of utility theory” and someone suddenly bursts into tears. (Oh no! not utility!!!). My brain was telling me “It’s okay, you like statistics” and my other brain was saying “No, you’re successful in statistics but you like script writing and narrative psychology and Documentary movies!” So why do I have to face that damn utility function instead of going into the forest and being eaten by the Blair Witch? God knows.
No, I know. It’s fear. It’s because I don’t think I’m good enough to do what I really want (It’s true, too). I’m stuck in this hole between the utility function and the unemployment line.
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