inadequacies

I'm starting to think that lovely Arnold autograph that Harvard On The Hill gave me doesn't mean shit. Because if it did, if I actually learned something in my four year stay at HOTH, my guess is I wouldn't be feeling quite so damn underprepared. What kind of crap is this? Who the hell designed the fucking program? A whole year of sightsinging, I don't actually remember how I got through it, or what the hell good it did me. A professor goes on sabbatical and I get screwed over on counterpoint. I don't think I wrote a single paper for a music class, I ended up sending the RCM an essay on Humboldt county because it was the only real essay I had written in college at that point (that, by the way, was at the beginning of my senior year. I think I wrote a grand total of two essays that I have any pride in, and spent more than a day on, whatsoever). Hell, I was sitting in on grad classes and they were asking ME how to do goddamn Shenker graphs. That is sad. And pathetic. And unacceptable.

All that said, I can't really blame HOTH for my own inadequacies. I can only get out of classes what I put into them. So maybe I just didn't try hard enough. I should have been more self-motivated. Should have kept up those skills I supposedly learned. Should have listened more, studied more, practiced more, wrote more. Whatever.

It just really would have been nice to have had this observation more than a month before grad school auditions, ya know?

I was watching American Idol (it's amusing through the regional auditions, seeing all the really awful people. Which is actually quite mean, and I should probably be ashamed of myself. But I'm not) and it occured to me that Simon is actually quite kind. He tells the people who really really suck the truth, before they get too far and invest too much time and energy into it. And sometimes I wish people did that more. If I truly, truly sucked at composition (which I don't think is true. Seriously.) I would hope that someone would have said something by now. Because now I've invested too much time and effort to back out. Although, when I did get told, as a clarinetist, I really didn't have what it takes to make it pro, I didn't take it so well, but I think a lot of that was because on some level I knew it, I just didn't want to admit it. Or maybe it just hurts less to say that.

A week ago I felt empowered. Today I feel like shit. After such a good lesson last week, I should have seen it coming. Whatever. Stop bitching, start working...well, after sleeping.