Trying to Resign

[rinue]

This whole "agent of fate" paraclete bit -- I'm tired of it. Next time I meet Fortune, I'm punching her in the nose.

Assuming of course that she has a nose at that point, and wouldn't it be just like her not to?

I swear to god that if I never see another allegory again, it'll be too soon.

Which does put a damper on most of my writing.

I will back up. Not to the beginning of the story, (because the beginning of the story makes people doubt my sanity,) but to this particular annoyance.

Took the GRE this morning, which is like the SAT for grad school. The drive there was one of the worst in my life, with standstill traffic and several accidents and loads of people trying to kill me with their cars. So when I arrived at the testing center, I was really shaky; this caused me to drop over a hundred points on my verbal score. (Verbal being the first section one takes. I'm basing what I should have made on various past practice tests and a practical assessment of my own ability.)

Now, this isn't disastrous. I'm still in the 90th or so percentile, and nobody's going to look at my verbal score anyway -- I'm in Economics. And I did brilliantly on the math section (although there are at least 2 questions that I got wrong but should have gotten right because I didn't see my error until a second after I'd confirmed my answer).

This is fine. I don't believe in standardized tests anyway -- I'm the first person to argue against them as accurate measures of ability. I've spent much of my life refusing to take IQ tests.

But *damnit* I should have made at least a 780 on the verbal.

Nobody's going to care about that but me, and possibly my parents (who will agree with me that it should have been better, and will probably make some snide comments even though they mean well).

IT DOESN'T MATTER. I KNOW I'M SMARTER AND THE SCORE ISN'T IMPORTANT.

I'm devoting a large percentage of my energy to not crying.

Which is stupid.

Which of course makes me more upset with myself.

I really hate that stupid concept of "you're only in competition with yourself." I think that's fucked me up more than anything else in my life. See, if I'm going against somebody else, I win. (Trust me on this.) It's not that I care about winning particularly, and I sometimes lose the game, but I win anyway. Competing with myself I have no chance, because either way it goes I'm always better than me. It means I can never just let things rest because there's always always always something I could have done that I didn't.

GodDAMNit.

I really hate me sometimes.

But anyway, that's not what precipitates this whole anti-messianic diatribe.

I got home, and there was my wok. Rusted. Note affixed from Val with a smiley face and a "you forgot to dry this and oil it, didn't you?" sort of comment.

No, I didn't. I did everything I could reasonably be expected to do. Didn't matter. There's my wok, bleeding iron oxide.

I feel emasculated.

nomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolismnomoresymbolism.

There are a million things I should be doing right now -- grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, writing, homework, taking a shower for chrissakes -- and I'm sure Val will be annoyed when she gets home because she will have had a bad day (she always has, not through her own fault) and I won't have done any of the things I'm supposed to do (including reseasoning the damn wok).

Fuck. ::scrubs at face::

Anyway, if it's all right with you, I think I'm just going to get really drunk on malt liquor and pretend that I'm Ernest Hemmingway. Simple sentences, here I come.

Comments

[hipgunslinger.livejournal.com]

When you've had bad days, I don't quite know how to react you know. Sometimes I feel like sympathy over LiveJournal doesn't translate well, but in an effort to extend my hopes that you feel better soon, I gesture.
*hug*

[rinue.livejournal.com]

I often feel the same way. Whenever I read a miserable entry from you, I think "damnit, why Canada? If he lived next door, I could, I don't know, make some tea and cake or something. We could comisserate."

Re:

[hipgunslinger.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling. The online expression of mutual mourning for any situations we wall ourselves into always sounds tinny.
Tea and cake sounds happy.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

were i on hand, i'd contribute a bottle of fairly good shiraz....jacobs creek probably.

and by the way...i was always convinced that you WERE earnest hemingway. my illusions are shattered.

nooo!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Not the wok! not the beloved wok!

I weep for you. But congratulations on your math score! You rock!

mwah!
stacey

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

not to worry, i was arsing around with US college ideas the other day and started to wonder 'what are these SAT thingies?' so i took a practise paper. i'm hoping i got the wrong end of the stick for most of it - i'm an *english* student for fucks sake, and my verbal skills were pitiful. then again, i broke my number one rule, which is 'never take a test whilst dead drunk'.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, numerous studies have concluded that scoring well on standardized tests really only goes to show that you're good at taking standardized tests -- especially when it comes to the verbal section.