Either I'm Smarter Than I Think I Am, Or I'm In Trouble

I'm right in the thick of essays right now -- handed one in yesterday, have another due Thursday. I only started the Thursday one last night. I wrote the whole thing from 6pm to about 1am, then took it in to the Writing Centre this morning (at 9am -- yay sleep deprivation!) to be critiqued. Some of the tutor's comments:

"You've obviously really thought a lot about this topic."
"This isn't just another paper that you've pumped out -- you really care about the issues here."
"This is superb work."

Gah! Either this means I've been doing way too much work on all my other papers, or that the paper was total crap and the tutor just didn't notice it. Or maybe, I guess, it could mean that I just caught a lucky break and won't have to work too much more on this essay. But still, it feels weird to have my very rough first draft be basically a finalized paper. I'm so used to going through several drafts and editing and re-editing that to just hand this one in without major reworking feels... immoral.

But I know this is just another guilt-junkie moment, and that I just have to get past it. Actually, I'll be interested to see if the person who marks my paper is as enthusiastic about it as the tutor was.

In other news, I spent this weekend in a farm house in Pickering, having naps (I didn't know I could!), petting an adorable little kitty, and having wonderfully long conversations with my friend Laurena (who's family owns said farmhouse). I had meant to get more work done, but I realize that that sort of out-of-the-ordinary weekend of relaxation was exactly what I needed. I also saw Joel on the way back, and we had a really good conversation on the bus. Things between us are slooowly getting better.

There was one really funny moment in the weekend. Y'see, the reason that I was there was to give a sermon at Laurena's Mennonite church. I know what you're thinking -- no, they're not old order Mennonites, so no horses or buggys. They're just normal people who like the pacifist/farmer/social justice/globally concerned outlook of the Mennonites. And Laurena somehow got me to speak at the church on Palm Sunday -- an entirely weird event from my point of view which still seems a little surreal. I was, for an hour at least, a pastor. Bizarre!

Anyways, before the service there is a Bible study portion, which I went to in order to keep myself from getting too nervous. There were about 20 people there, and as we got settled the leader said "Okay, today we'll deal with a passage on humility, and if we get a chance we'll also look at the Palm Sunday passage of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem."

My thoughts:

Gah! If we deal with the "Triumphal Entry" passage he might say the same stuff I'm going to say in my sermon. He might steal my thunder... or worse, contradict my points entirely!

Now, I must say that normally this would not be a problem. I like different people interpreting things differently. I like having alternative points of view -- the more the better, I think, especially when it comes to something as controversial and difficult as the Bible. But at that moment, in my anxiety, all I could think was that the people in the room would instinctively agree with the leader and spend my whole sermon thinking "Oh, she's wrong."

The thought came to me with full force: Stall him!

So I did. And how! Anytime it looked like we were going to move on I raised another question or issue with the passage. It really wasn't that hard, actually -- the passage was interesting, and other people seemed content to keep talking about it. But I swear, when I looked at my watch to see we couldn't possibly have enough time to do the second passage, I said a quick prayer to the effect of "Thank you Jesus, for helping me stall him."

For me, this just seemed to be common sense -- after all, it wouldn't have been very nice of me to just say right out "I don't want you to possibly contradict me by interpreting this passage". Stalling seemed to be the easiest, and politest, way to get what I wanted. But everyone else who I've told this story to finds it frankly hilarious.

So what have I learned in the past couple of days?

1. Lack of time and interest in an essay does not, actually, affect how well I write.
2. I can still function pretty well while sleep deprived.
3. Jesus will help you manipulate people.

Everybody Knows It Hurts To Grow Up

The title to this post is from a Ben Folds song called "Still Fighting It" which, even though it's actually about a father/son relationship, has come to stand for the hell that has been my last week and a half.

I broke up with Joel, my boyfriend of five years, last Saturday.

Just typing that makes me cry.

It's so fucking complicated, and it's so hard. Nothing really changed -- he remained the sweet, funny, throwing-himself-headlong-into-everything person that he is, and I remained the thoughtful, English-geek, talkative person that I am. I just came to the end of two months of thinking which made me realize that I wasn't sure if he was the right person for me. That, in fact, I wasn't even even sure what I wanted, or who I really was apart from Joel.

Not surprisingly, after five years of going out, we'd been talking about marriage. And that made me realize I just wasn't ready to commit my life to Joel. Not because he's not a wonderful person, but just because he might not be the wonderful person who's supposed to be my husband.

So I told him that. And he cried. And I cried. And I spent the rest of the week wandering around in a daze alternatly leaping back into my (now very surreal) life of classes and QCF and friends, and curling up on my bed thinking "Why does it have to be this way?".

I know I did the right thing, but that doesn't make it any easier. It doesn't stop me from wanting to call Joel, to see if he's doing any better, just to talk to him. It also doesn't stop actually talking to Joel being a truly gut-wrenching experience. It doesn't stop the fact that I just organized a QCF retreat on 'Relationships' this weekend, an irony which will be hysterically funny in a few years. But not now. Ditto for the irony of me speaking at QCF next Thursday on the topic of 'love'.

I used to think that when breakups happened, someone had to have changed. That something had to be 'wrong'. That someone was the bad guy, and someone was the good guy. I used to think all that.

Everybody knows it sucks to grow up.

Go you!

My best friend graduated today.

Despite all the crap that's happened to her (bad teachers, stupid groupmates, unsupportive family, lack of money...and getting hit by a car) she persevered and she sucked it up and she did it. And did it damn well too.

She's officially the first of her siblings to actually graduate from a post-secondary insitution.

YAAAAAY!

I'm proud of you, Tooey.