defeated

stupid everything.

i spend most of my days speaking 16 year old to 16 year olds.
by 3:30 p.m. the only language i speak coherently is nap.
by 3:30, i am a picasso of smeared eye make up, disheveled hair, and food stains.
by 3:30 p.m. on any given day, i am not fit for public viewing.

and yet, twice a week 3:30 finds me in all my disheveled glory
sitting in the middle of academia
surrounded by 20something year olds who speak fifty different languages
and get invited to present their research papers at conferences
and probably always use commas correctly.

at one point i used to fancy myself to be quite clever. my favorite undergrad teacher even referred to me as "brilliant" to a friend once. perhaps at the undergraduate level i was brilliant in some sort of undergraduate way. but over a half of a decade later, it's becoming quite clear that my summacumlaude came with an expiration date.

ah, hubris! (a word i have retained from those undergrad glory days)

there's nothing like taking a shakespeare class to make you realize that what you imagine to be the fine products of a vivacious critical mind are only rudimentary connect the dot versions of ideas that the entire critical world and most of your peers have concluded and set aside by the second act.

i stumble. i stammer for words. today i could not even remember the word for incest. how can you discuss literature intelligently without being able to call to mind the word incest on cue?

by 3:30 p.m. everyday, i am defeated. i think back on all my undergrad "insight" with contempt. who did she think she was? what did she think she was going to DO with all those thoughts?
go back to your journals, neophyte. you have nothing to say and no one is listening.

"who is it that can tell me who i am?"

stupid everything.