anice berg

I always assumed that finals were called finals because of the terminating nature of their existence. They represent the end much like Schwarzenegger represents the end of sanity…

or something. But problems arise when the inherent final test to a class is more than a month before the end of the school year, and that’s with graduation in a year when tests started literally as late as possible. (AP testing starts the first full week of may, May Day was a Tuesday, think about it.) These weeks before graduation are going to be painful as a motherfucker.

It seems as if nothing should matter at this point; that last week of school where you just schlep around signing yearbooks and enjoying the weather feels like it should be starting now, regardless of this typical Seattle fare. But in 4 too many of my classes I am actually doing things. It is a horrible, horrible fate. It is essentially a Bad Horse level of evil on a scale of MLP to Sauron. Projects in several classes, a book to read, excessive testing to study for and a serious lack of advancement with the females* are all fates I am suffering through simultaneously. 

At this point, I will step back and acknowledge that complaining is a waste of breath in that most of the work I have to do right now is culminating work for non-AP work or was assigned too long ago to be blamed on post-AP testing filler bullshit. I offer my complaint nonetheless.

*This is completely related to the fact that it feels like it should be that early summer romance-rush, but it isn’t quite yet that time yet. (compare to the sentiment that we shouldn’t be doing anything in class because it feels like its the last week of school already.)

Welcome to “Thoughts” with AnIceBerg where completely irrational problems meet completely illogical progression of discussion.

To begin with, let us make it clear that in my mental reality I can’t even begin to imagine where I want to be and what I want to be doing 4 years from now let alone 10, 20 forever from now. That is not to say I can’t imagine what I could do, I could go into politics, I could go into the perpetual studies of the graduate world, I could be an astronaut or I could publish a shit ton of poetry and live off scraps that I peel from the bottoms of loafers worn by cocktail-suckers who think my poetry is “interesting.” On occasion I decide to completely rule out certain prospective fields only to realize they are entirely realistic options. (Though I will never go into medicine.)

Before today, I had more or less been quite distant from the idea of studying English or a related field in Humanities. I didn’t really get (ie: pay attention or put any effort into) a large portion of my AP Lit class. I scraped a rather basic understanding of the Lit Crit materials from the skimming I did of the lengthy readings assigned to the class. But there I was today, sitting in the sweltering test room after bubbling through the typically simple multiple choice. I had made the unfortunate wardrobe choice of a woman’s red and purple striped turtle neck that rarely comes out of the closet for when I write a particularly good Poem for Poetry Club. The way the sweater wraps its hands around the neck can go from sleek to entirely uncomfortable without a whole lot of sweating.  Regardless of my choice of clothing, I was blistering my finger with the rubber of the black inked pen that left a trail of some of the best writing I have ever pulled out of my ass. Now, when you blow so hard at an activity and then turn around and actually do that activity with relative success, it blows your mind so hard in an entirely erotic and sexual way.

It was between writing about the capitalistic criticism encapsulated in the carapace of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and the inextricable nature of human desire from human action that I realized that I was actually finding sincere amounts of joy in the AP Literature and Composition exam. I intended to start at UW studying astrophysics, but at this point it looks likely that I will get a 5 on the Lit and Lang exams and only a 3 on the Physics B exam.

It is difficult for me to justify a choice in major if I always can turn around and find subjects that I am proving to be more proficient in. It’s like when in track I always talk about being more of a longer distance guy as exemplified by my ridiculous performance in half-marathons or back-to-back 5k’s; yet this season I have dropped nearly 20 seconds in my 1600m race and haven’t dropped any time at all in the 32. This evidence could be construed to show how ridiculous my views of myself are even though it probably reflects Coach’s methods more than my personal abilities. Similarly, my physics teacher is unfortunately not particularly wise in the sciences while Dr. Babienko is probably one of the most genius teachers I have ever had…

Ultimately, if one were to truly reflect on the derivation of my problems in deciding what to do with my life, it would be realized that I couldn’t give less of a shit about most things that occur in my life.

/rant