These lyrics from Ben Folds Five pretty much sum up how I am feeling right now:
She says, “Everywhere I go, damn, there I am.”
Here I am, sitting at the study center, working on my thesis while regularly checking my email to see if an old professor of mine, a professor to whom I still owe a paper, a paper whose completion, or lack thereof, will determine my ability to graduate from this damn program in a little over a month, will allow me to actually write the paper after all this time. And I really want to be mad at someone about it. I want to be mad at the professor for making the classroom environment, and therefore my learning experience, so massively unpleasant. I want to be mad at the two professors who attempted to advise me earlier in this thesis process and, through their utter lack of engagement, made me feel dumb and inadequate. I want to be mad at the tendency of academia to celebrate those who publish more than those who teach better, for causing my program to lose so many talented professors while keeping people who act as though teaching is a small requirement they must fulfill en route to raising their own status in the field. But when it comes down to it, that would just be a technique in avoidance. That would just be an attempt to place the blame on someone else when, in reality, it lands squarely on my shoulders. I am the one who didn’t write the paper. I am the one who let the actions of others determine my perception of my own self-worth. I am the one who put all this off until the last possible moment when I knew I would already be at a loss for time and drowning in deadlines and stress. I am the one. Only me. And sometimes that is the hardest thing to deal with. But here I am, dealing with it, and figuring out how to get out of my own damn way.
If only I was flexible enough to kick my own ass.
franklyrebekah 
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