“Work = The Twilight Zone”

I have got to get better sleep. Or more of it somehow.

Seminar this week was amazing for me. Every week we have a scholarly article to read and a response paper to write on it. The one we got back this time was one I’d been dreading getting back, at least a little. In it, I argued about the importance of emotion in music and how frustrating it is that scholars continue to leave out this vital aspect of it. I thought my writing was a little heavy-handed, or that the opinion I was expressing wasn’t one that was allowed or something. There was something in the writing that I felt as I was writing it like well, this will never fly but I feel so strongly about it, I’ve got to write it. So we got the papers back and I got a 99/100 – my highest mark yet. I was stunned.

I’m still a little stunned. I’m not sure at what point I’ll get over this feeling. I’m doing well in grad school—really well. I know I won’t get high marks on every paper, and no doubt there will be serious struggles, but with all the hard work I’m putting in it feels so good to be rewarded for it.

As a brief aside, it really makes work annoying. Lame. How suck that I’ve got to deal with this bullshit everyday. And it’s not bullshit, of course. I’m doing this for a reason. I want to not have to stress over money while I’m in grad school. It’s a trade-off I’ve chosen to make, and I really think it’s the right one. I won’t have to do this forever. But after a rush like last night, to walk in here today… I don’t know. This is just so… wow. Words are failing me.

But school is amazing. To be doing well in it is amazing to me. Why am I so surprised? Why I am surprised that an intelligent, great writer, great composer, should do well? Why am I surprised by this? I have my therapy coming up, and I may talk with her about it. Is it lack of self-confidence? Maybe. But it feels more like a check against becoming an egoist. Like, I don’ t want to believe in myself too strongly or think too highly of myself because then bad things will happen. Actually, me and the therapist have talked about this a little already, this fear of doing well and being confident about my success in school. It’s just holdover fear from being a kid and being teased, bullied by my peers when I did well. Though, I supposed ‘just’ doesn’t apply if it’s still got a grip on me. Maybe ‘from’ is good enough. There’s no judgment there.

I’ve often wished I could just do music, not have to do this day job. Now with school, I’m getting a glimpse of what it’s like for life to be like that. It’s a shift, and it will take time, but being on the road to it… maybe I need to enjoy my journal more, not so much focus on the destination? But even that isn’t it. It’s that I *am* enjoying the journey so much. To come into this work place feels like, like going into a coma or a zombie-state. No, that’s not right. More like, walking back into a Twilight Zone episode where I’m some office guy under florescent lights instead of the musician I really am.

Oh, and my coworker is having major B.O. problems today, which definitely doesn’t help.