Back in L.A., Back to Reality

I wouldn't call myself a napper. I'm more of a stick-it-out-whining-about-how-tired-she-is-until-eventually-collapsing-at-8-pm kind of girl, but yesterday's late night "festivities" got me deliriously out of bed at 6 am and out the door by 7:30 in time for my four hour 8 - 12 class. What have I gotten myself into? This called for an almost well-deserved mental high-five and evidently, a fabulous and uninterrupted 2 hour nap in my sun-soaked apartment room. Needless to say, it felt good. The worst part, I have to admit, about taking naps, is that you have to wake up from them eventually. Being back at U.C.L.A. (woo Bruins) is strange. No, I mean, Twilight Zone strange, not slightly weird strange. It almost feels like I was never here, and that I'm merely visiting for a day or two, at most a week. The memories of my first and second years -- being admitted, taking my first studios, eating at the dining halls unhealthily and incessantly, joining LCC, performing, moving into the apartment, everything feels like another life. Now here I am, an undergraduate junior in winter quarter, facing graduation in a year, and dragging all this weight that I hadn't time to shed -- while everyone else seems to be running with perseverance, with drive. I really don't know how to describe this without sounding like I've smoked up a few too many, and honestly, how typically dull is it to listen to a recent ex-patriot, and now, I guess. . . re-patriot (?) complain about their disillusion and other depressing things of that nature?

I was the first one back at the apartment last night. It took me a good underestimated 5 hours to get everything packed, down the stairs, to the car, jammed into the car, driven, pulled out of the car, and into my apartment. I returned to find the table in my room a filthy mass, clothes hangers strewn about, and things just poorly taken care of. My mother raised me to always leave a space cleaner and better than you found it, and this went against everything mama taught me. It wasn't long before I made everything okay again (including changing the time on the clock). . .the only thing I've got to do is unpack all my clothes -- which sit dauntingly in my 2 large suitcases in the hall. Heh.

My beginning painting studio is the only basic studio that I had left on my mandatory credits list for my major. Surprising for me, because painting was my medium of preference when I first came to UCLA, and I had put it off up until now in hopes of a good professor and a good quarter because I wanted to fully enjoy it. Now I'm stuck with a classroom full of first-years wondering if you can call an impressionist-style painting of 2 pigeons in a meadow contemporary art. What's horrible about being an art major is that it's impossible to remove your peers from their artwork, therefore, if they have godawful artwork, your opinion of them largely hinges on the work they produce. I know it's a horrible belief to admit, much less uphold, but for me, it's the truth. Oh no, I don't mean you have to like the artwork, it just has to be good. There's a difference. Respect is the artists' true weapon.

After an overview of the syllabus (I don't know why professors bother) from my petite instructor (she's tinier than my thumb), we constructed panels to be canvas-ized (that IS the official term, you know) on Wednesday. I headed to my second class, French 6.

Before I even begin to recount the headache of a class I had to sit through this afternoon, let me remind you readers that French 6 is indeed the highest university-level French that one can achieve. I say achieve because I've worked my butt off to get up to this level (5 days a week for 6 quarters plus outside work is quite an investment). You would think that the stragglers, the I'm-only-in-it-for-the-credit-ers, the I-took-it-in-high-school-so-why-not?-ers would have dropped out, ran away, gotten bulldozed by mobs of angry French linguists. . . BUT NO. After a quarter in French fluent Paris, I was warped back into my American French class bubble, where nothing of value is taught and nothing of value is learned and the students all speak as though they were hammered on the head with a 2 by 4 as children. French six. Come on. It's not cute nor is it delightfully funny when the only phrase you have mastered is "bien sûr" or "oui oui!" in response to almost everything.

...

Excuse me.

Wow, I just sound like a snob. I blame it on the disillusionment.


Happy new school year.