Changes [1] - Provocation and Revelation

I've been waffling about what to write in this post. There are so many things I want to talk about, but I've been trying to avoid having it all rush out in one big projectile of incoherent, stinking blog-vomit. So much has changed in the last three months; it's hard for me to parse, even now. I suppose that, just like the last time the proverbial shit hit the equally proverbial fan, I'll start with the facts and elaborate over as many posts as necessary. Otherwise...I'll never start. No wonder so many academic papers begin the same way!

Anyway.

Fact #1: The composition faculty, at a big important end-of-semester meeting that I didn't know existed until the day before it happened, told me that my first year composition project needed revisions. Okay, fine. No big deal, was expected. They dictated to me what changes were to be made, and some of them fundamentally altered the piece. They also demanded that I drop everything (job, work left for other professors from the Spring, home responsibilities, etc.) and do the revisions immediately. That is a big deal.

Fact #2: Going to Atlantic Center for the Arts was a life changing experience.

Fact #3: I have finally decided for certain that I will be seeding applications to other universities this fall. The programs I apply to will be MFAs and perhaps Ph.Ds in interdisciplinary arts, not music.

So. Obviously there's a lot going through my head right now. I've been thinking about leaving this university almost since I got here. I've known since the beginning that I don't really fit here, either artistically or socially, but I've been trying to make it work anyway. Great funding, health insurance, a prestigious school seal on my degree, all very nice things...but I've realized that the degree itself matters less to me than the process I go through to get it. If I'm miserable during my entire time at this school, the quality of my work will suffer, and the degree won't be worth a damn because I won't have a good portfolio of music, art, and writing to back it up. Assuming I even got to the degree-acquiring part, considering how incompatible my ideas are with those of the department. I accomplished so little this academic year that I feel quite embarrassed, and after the experiences I've had this summer and the work I've produced, I know that it's not my brain, it's the environment. I was very relieved to discover this. I thought I was broken. So, with renewed confidence in myself, I looked back on my time at this university and realized...wow, this place really blows. And not in the entertaining, orgasmic way.

To be continued.

x-posted from phdead.net, please post all comments there.