Rabble rabble rabble

I haven't written for a while. Probably because I've been crazy busy.
Too many units this quarter. I don't know what I was thinking, adding an extra class. But it's almost over... and I think I'll do ok. I've messed up my sleep cycle so badly that my eye's been twitching for a week, but I'm almost done. Summer's almost here.

I'm beginning to get very nervous about graduating. I suppose you could say I've done a lot of growing up in the last year, and I'm no longer so sure that things are going to work out the way I want. I guess that's healthy; naivete won't get you anywhere in the competitive cut-throat business world, but I'm the kind of person who needs to have her head in the clouds a little bit, or I'll lose my motivation. I spoke with my adviser a few weeks ago and finally got an official graduation date... I've got a year and a quarter left. Will I be ready by then? I doubt it. But then, who is?

I don't really know what I want to do anymore. I'm still in love with art and photography, but I don't know what exactly I want to do. I'm not sure I ever really had an idea, I just thought things would happen naturally because I'm a creative person and I "have what it takes." But I'm not even sure of that any more. Confidence has always been a problem for me... I think I'm pretty good but I've always had a really hard time projecting that and convincing others of it. I hate tooting my own horn, and I always feel like I have to be 100% honest in my abilities and experience or I'll disappoint people. If my professional practices class this quarter has taught me anything, it's that I can't survive with that kind of attitude. You should never flat out lie about your abilities, but if you do think you could pull something off even if you've never done it before, you should never, ever let a client know that it's new to you. Confidence goes a long way when it comes to business of any sort, but in art, you really have to convince people that you are the BEST, even if you don't believe it, or you won't get the job. I don't know if I'm capable of that.

I don't have a lot of confidence in myself, period. I don't want to be overdramatic and go so far as to say that I think I'm worthless (because that's not true, there are things I admire about myself), but I don't know how to deal with other people. I've thematized this before--how I'm awkward and shy in social settings and I often feel uncomfortable at parties, but it extends beyond that. I don't feel good/smart/interesting/sexy/fill-in-the-blank enough. I still haven't completely gotten over the feeling of being in a "lower" social strata from elementary school. I got invited to a party by one of the "popular" guys in the art department last weekend, and my first thought was " Wait, me? You want ME at your party?" I felt simultaneously flattered and suspicious, but I didn't wind up going anyway because I knew I'd wind up sitting on a couch somewhere, watching everyone else have fun while I felt bored and annoyed at myself for being socially inept.

I don't like my body. It's not to the point of any kind of psychosis or anything, but it's been bothering me a lot more recently than I like to let on. I've started going to the gym, I walk to school, I've cut Starbucks completely out of my diet (with the exception of the occasional cappuccino or iced chai, no more pastries), and I've even started buying Weight Watchers frozen meals for those times that I would ordinarily have snacked on something less healthy because I didn't have time/didn't feel like cooking something. Yet in spite of that, I haven't seen a change in my body or the number on the scale and I feel like tearing my hair out from frustration. Why do I care so much? Do I care what other people think when they see me? Well, not really... I'm not obese or anything, and I don't think that people see me on the bus and think to themselves "Dear god that girl is huge!" Am I paranoid about what my boyfriend thinks? No. I mean if there's anyone I want to look good for, it's him, but I'm confident that he loves me and thinks I'm beautiful anyway, so no, that doesn't concern me very much. As usual, I'm my own harshest critic. I want to look good for myself. I want to look in the mirror and be happy with what I see. I want to wear shorts. I want to be able to sit down in a tight dress (or wear a tight dress at all) and not have to put something in front of my stomach to hide my rolls. I do think that a lot of it is stress; this has been a very hard quarter for me, and as I mentioned, my sleep cycle is all sorts of screwed up (and it has been proven that lack of sleep can result, among other things, in weight gain), so I'm hoping that I'll be able to do something about this once summer starts and I have more time and less stress.

I'm not even so confident in my own artistic abilities anymore. I've really been lacking in creative inspiration lately... I feel like all my photos look the same and it's hard to get excited about anything anymore. And I haven't written a song in like two years. That actually bothers me a lot... my songwriting was what defined me in high school, even more than photography. I was turning out songs every couple of months. I'd write lyrics in my math classes, they'd just flow out of me, and then I'd go home and improvise a little bit on the piano until something came out that I liked. It was so easy, and I was good at it, and I even had a small following among friends. People told me I had a real talent for it. Where did it go? I can't even tell you how many times I've found myself with free time and sat down somewhere to write a new song, and nothing came out. Sometimes I'll get a verse or so in and feel like it's going somewhere, but then I'll come back to it later and realize it's absolute crap. Why? What happened? I can't be dried up already, I'm only 20! And as far as photography goes, I've had a couple of ego-killers in the last month with that too. The internship I've been drooling over since October finally called to inform me that they have no openings because business has been slow (not my fault, but still a big bummer, especially since I was so focused on this possibility that I never bothered to think of a plan B). But worse than that, we just had the annual photography scholarship competitions (there were two of them, and only 4 contestants) and I didn't win squat. One of the scholarships was something I knew I wouldn't get because I don't do commercial photography, but I thought I at least had a pretty good shot at the fine art one. Nope. No cigar. I had a 25% chance of getting that scholarship, but I wasn't good enough. If I can't even come out on top when I only have THREE competitors, how on earth am I going to make it in the real world?

There's something my mom pointed out a long time ago that has really stuck with me because I think it's very true. She told me that I seem to work best when I'm in an environment where I feel superior. Some people take inspiration from people around them who are better than them and it makes them want to work harder, but I, unfortunately, get disheartened when I don't win all the time. It's a characteristic I really hate about myself because it makes me unrealistic and competitive in a negative way. I'll pour my heart into a first attempt, but when that first attempt doesn't yield the desired results, I'm disinclined to try again. That time I tried jazz singing last summer is a perfect example: everyone else told me I did fine, but I was so unhappy with my performance because I expected myself to be perfect, that I never tried it again. I haven't touched jazz since. And this whole scholarship thing has really thrown a monkey wrench in my whole outlook on my future. I feel like because of this one failure, I'll never make it. I'm not good enough. This overwhelming negativity that I get from failure extends itself into practically every area of my life, I've realized. It's the reason why during my first couple of years of college, I dated guys who were, by all accounts, sub par--I was smarter and more interesting and successful than they were, and I knew it, so by comparison, they made me feel powerful (screwed up, I know). It's the reason why taking active steps to lose weight and finding it to be more difficult than I'd anticipated has actually made me hate my body more than ever (I've never been completely happy with how I looked, but I never really used to worry about it... these days it's on my mind almost constantly). It's the reason I'm less sociable than I was in high school. And it's the biggest reason that I am scared for my future. How am I supposed to make others think that I'm worth their time when I have so much doubt in myself?

How do I fix myself? I've probably already shaved a year or two off my lifespan with all the pressure I've been putting on myself in the last couple of years. I get headaches practically every other day, which can't be healthy, and I don't think all the nights I've gone without sleep are going to go without repercussions. I can't continue to live like this, especially when I start looking for a real job. I do think I have at least enough talent to get by as long as I'm able to convince someone else of that... I've seen some pretty crappy photographers make bank because they were able to sell themselves well, but how do I change myself? I know what people say, about how you can't always win, and "when at first you don't succeed, try again," yadda yadda. I know how I'm supposed to think, I just don't know how to make myself really feel it.

Ugh.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Enough complaining. Sorry.
I really need summer to happen. Like, now.
Too much.