What a day!

Such a mess of a day! I sware...

Was a total mess in Latin... This whole perfect passive participle thing is killing me... Not how to form it. I get that... but how to translate it? Hehe... I wish! It's not coming as instinctively as all the other tenses and forms have. We're told constantly in English classes that passive voice is bad, bad, bad... Drilled to never do it, even while we aren't told precisely what it is (because grammar education in this country sucks)... Even though it isn't incorrect, strictly speaking, it's just not "the most correct." ::rolls eyes:: what ever...

But what *really* killed me today was my seminar tonight. We had to turn in our rough drafts last Monday, or I should say more precisely, my half of the class did. We did this to the other half of the class last week. So for tonight's class, those of us who turned our papers in this week had our papers ripped apart by everyone else. I guess I'm sensitive about such things... or maybe its because even after all the info I've gathered, I still don't feel I have a handle on it, or perhaps it's just because I already felt this paper sucked... I don't know, but that was damn hard. I didn't argue with people like most others did. I didn't defend it and I tried really hard to explain myself, but I think even I didn't know what I was saying most of the time. ::sighs::

And this one woman... whom I shall not name... I don't know what her issue is, but she has about as much tact as a ton of bricks that's been thrown off the top of the Empire State Building. She couldn't form her questions in a more condescending, "how could you dream of saying something like *this*!" kind of way... I sware... I refuse to take it personally (if I keep saying it, eventually, I'll believe it) because she was doing the same thing to everyone... Questioning the sources I used, questioning their validity, as if it were my mistake, as if I should know the answer or know better. Very abrassive... I don't know if they're right or wrong! I'm an undergrad with exactly 6 classes in the Medieval period! That hardly gives me the knowledge or experience I'd need to question a PhDed historian who at least thinks that they themselves are right in their interpretation!

I don't perform well verbally when under pressure, so I was quite flustered. I tell you, I don't wish the experience on anyone.

I also don't question things until I feel I have all the information. This is just my nature. I ask questions I need to ask to gain more information, but unless something conflicts with another source, I don't question it... and I certainly don't answer questions myself. And I don't form my own interpretation until I have all the info either... This is why I never speak in classes. I listen to what everyone else has to say about something and I come to my own opinion on a particular topic slowly... It develops over months, sometimes years of incubation. So being put into a position like I was this evening, I can't tell you how very flustered I was. It sucked... really hard...

For the rest of the class, I felt like I was going to be sick. I almost got up a few times to get some air outside, but I was afraid if I moved that much I'd be sick. So I just stayed in my seat and tried not to look obviously upset. That took most of my concentration... And I'm not even sure it was successful because I have one of those faces where you can see what I'm thinking by looking at me and I really can't hide it (unless I'm actively lying... I am a really good liar when I want to be...)... And even when I got home a little while ago, I still felt a little nauseous. This was why I had wanted to go last, I knew I'd have this reaction and be perfectly useless to anyone for anything for the rest of the time I was required to be there... but the prof decided that I had to go *next* to last. All I know about the last paper was that it was about the waste of fishmongers and butchers in Medieval London and the problems that it caused for the other townspeople. Even so, I really don't think that it contributed to the nausea at all...

I can't even bring myself to look seriously at the rough draft copy I got back from the prof... I just can't take it right now... I have to let it sit until at least Friday... maybe Saturday... so that I can detatch myself from taking it personally. I didn't used to have this reaction it seems to me... It seems that it is a new problem... I didn't used to get reactions like this to the papers I wrote either... I think it's because... it's almost like he grades them and considers them on a graduate scale or something. I dunno...

I'm thinking I don't want to be a historian... I'm thinking I want to look into Classics or Literature or... or folk crafts or something... something that can be open to interpretation that's not right or wrong, only opinion... or be so concrete that there is no interpretation, there's only what it is... I don't like all this conflict and derision. It seems to me that History is open to interpretation so long as the majority agrees with it, but at the same time, we're constantly told we have to come up with out own, new, never-before-seen-that-way interpretation... and then we get shot down like a USAF jet-fighter over Germany circa 1943. It stresses me out too damn much! For goodness sake, this is the kind of class I'd have all through grad school with History! I don't know if I could stand that... I'm starting to wonder what I ever liked about it 'cause it sure isn't the Academia aspect of it!

But I'll stew over it for a while, as I do with everything else, before I make a decision. My life is nothing but options at this point, which is both a blessing and a curse...

The only bright spots of the day were Latin class (because it can't be anything but, even when it's hard), Roman Lit (again for the same reason), eating lunch with Stacey, one of my friends from Latin, seeing Maria for all of 2 seconds (both she and I are *so* busy right now!), and arriving home to discover that my "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy" t-shirt had come in the mail and it fits! I will wear it to Latin tomorrow. :D