Hey

Hey. It's been awhile.

I've been going through one of those horrible, awful, no good, very bad predicaments in which I am overcome with failure and in turn, begin questioning who I am. I am an English major. But upon submitting a poem to my university's literary magazine I receive an email informing me that I was not included because they had chosen 130 other better pieces. It's not like I wrote the poem with publication in mind, it was for class, but I just thought it was supposed to be effortless, you know? If I'm so inclined to English, why can't I compete with only 130 other submissions. In the real world, it would be 130,000 submissions. How can I even compete?

I try not to be too hard on myself. Sylvia Plath sent hundreds of submissions to Seventeen magazine before she was finally published. Her poetry took years of careful work and refinement to be noticed. But I'm no Sylvia Plath.

My other classes have been equally frustrating. In my Latin American Cultures class I studied for three days and nights, pulling an all-nighter the last day, for a mid-term on Thursday. Even though I was very thoughtful with my studying, re-reading and taking notes, consolidating information and comparing and contrasting points of interest for the essay portion. But come the day of the test, I knew I had faltered. All that studying. And I can say in all honesty that it was the best effort I could have put forth and it seemed to have fell way below par. I was always so good with Spanish. I've been learning it since I was 13. If I can't even succeed at the things I've always been good at, then who am I?

English is my life. I can't see myself doing anything different. But when my opinion clashes with that of world-renowned professor, how can I bring myself to write a 6-8 page paper about something I know she will hate and tear to pieces because she's published 5 zillion books on the subject already and has a predisposed bias.

Maybe I need to get past my own laziness. I want to write one paper. I don't want to revise. I don't want to be critiqued. I want it to be right the first time. This isn't real life though. It's another one of my movies.

Life always proceeds in a cycle. Eventually something great will happen that will make all of this insignificant. But as for now, I am in a time of reflection facing an impending change.

See you then.