6:05 p.m. - 2008-04-01
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?
This is beautiful. And it's not even a very good picture compared to the one I actually wanted to steal. Go here to see more newly-discovered Antarctic sea creatures.
And this is very very old. For you lazy non-link clickers, it's an recently discovered Egyptian statue of Queen Tiye.
There is something so simultaneously awesome (original meaning, not colloquial usage) and so incredibly soothing about things that have changed not at all over the past 10,000+ years. Right now, I'm just trying to unwind after last night's little procrastination-and-paper-writing party.* I finished the damn thing. No more Middlemarch for me, no sir.
Just in time, too. We are talking a 10:47 am printing, followed by a dash to the nearest bagel shop, and on into the elevator line for 11 am class. (NYU's Main Building elevator system is ridiculously overcrowded and complicated. Not interesting complicated either, but more along the lines of clusterfuck complicated**)
Then I actually got to class, where I was immediately selected to give the first presentation. I mean, I know why I got chosen. It's because I absolutely cannot shut up during class. I am the Amazing Interactive Student. I'm not even sure it's possible for me to sit in a classroom for an entire hour without raising my hand. So I was chosen because the professor figured, what with the astonishing amount of time I spend flapping my mouth, getting up and talking to the class for about 5 minutes should be a breeze, right?
Wrong. I am terrified of public speaking. Class participation doesn't count; that's just garden-variety Holding Forth. This business of actually getting up and standing behind a lectern and reading from pre-prepared notes, though? Terrified. Like knees-knocking, hands shaking, cheeks-blushing TERRIFIED.
In addition to all of these entirely symptomatic, no root cause, fear symptoms I have, I also have a very specific worry. I suppose I've had it for a while on some sub- or pre-conscious level, but it only very recently occurred to me. The same professor who chose me today was asking me a few weeks ago about my plans for after graduation, did I think I might go for grad school and make a career out of this academia thing or what, and I told her probably not. I said I didn't think I'd make a very good teacher, that I got nervous about the idea of lecturing. What I didn't tell her is this:
I am scared of having to pee in mid-lecture.
Seriously. I mean, it happens occasionally now, as it does to I think everyone, but since I'm in the audience we don't actually have to stop class over it. I know, I know, it's no big deal, but think about it. Have you had/did you ever have a teacher stop class so he or she could run to the powder room? I haven't. I firmly believe that a career in academia requires much better bladder control than I currently possess.
This, of course, is not the only reason I'm hesitant. As a matter of fact it's pretty damn near the bottom of the list. But it's on there. In Digitally Remastered Day-mare DVD.
-Britt
*It seems alliteration is much more appealing literary device when you are borderline hallucinating from lack of sleep. Good to know if I ever decide to become Head Poet of the mushroom-eating masses.
**I really need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with this machine's spellchecker: Now, I can see not knowing Middlemarch. But clusterfuck? Come on. Look, laptop, if we're going to work together, we need to lay down some ground rules. First, you're going to have to teach your assistant TextEdit over there how to motherfucking cuss. Don't cover your ears, word processor! Take it like a man!***
***Where did that come from? Don't look at me. I'm as baffled as you are.
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