Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Higher Education

I had dinner with my 3 best buds last night, plus Gemini Toddler Boo. Thankfully no Sombreros were involved, but I did manage to successfully jack my daughter up on fried ice cream, in true birthday celebration.

Out of my Leo Friend Circle, one has completed her BA in English Education, and has been a certified sub with the Durango School District. Now she is in the process of opening her own Scrapbooking business, completely following her heart and happily sprinting away from her former life as a teacher. Opening a business of any sort is risky, and in Durango, it takes a wily and persistent owner to attain success. JL has always faced challenge with an admirable sense of cool confidence, which I am completely in awe of.

The second Leo chugged away through college, almost non-stop, taking summer school classes and working sometimes 3 jobs at a time. She graduated with an English degree and slid easily into a high-stress, low-respect, kick-your-ass government job. Now she is chipping away at a Masters, while climbing the professional and political ladder. She also may try to squeeze a trip to Germany into her classes, which all of us have agreed is slightly crazy, but oh so impressive. Yeah, and you wonder why her lung collapsed?

The third Leo, who has always been my close companion in the eccentric, kooky, slightly-off artistic world of movies, books, video games and music, took a long break from college, after experiencing a truly horrendous first semester. She now is completing her BA in graphic design, and loving every minute of it. She has been sketching for as long as I've known her, and its truly amazing to see her talent blossom into exciting career opportunities.

As for myself, I was the solo out-of-state college girl. At 18, I was about as disillusioned as a teenager could be at the thought of higher education, but when one of the most exclusive private film schools accepted my application, I didn't have the guts to tell my mother I didn't want to go. I was tired of moving, I was tired of schooling, I was tired of getting good grades, and I didn't want any more of it. Having the backbone of a true Piscean fish, I sucked it up and headed to Boston.

Karmatee describes the world of Media image in her most recent post, and I can affirm that its all true. My friends who were Public Relation majors (I used to call them majors in the art of bullishit) told me that one of their professors had painted on eyebrows, because "self- presentation was the most important aspect of Public Relations." My friends learned absolutely nothing in that class, since they were too busy laughing hysterically in the back row at how freakish her eyebrows were.

Sadly, we were the minority in this opinion. The rest of the PR Army at my school marched around the city looking like mini-Katie Courics. I mean what 18-year-old wears pearls and power suits? I don't know about you, but I went to 7 am classes in PJs, holding Dunkin Donuts to my lips. Thus continued my quiet disillusionment of the education system.

None-the-less, I received my diploma, just .4 short of a Cum Laude, bearing the established badge of Emerson College: Batchelors of Arts in Media Studies. Over the course of 4 years, my field of study dwindled from a double major in Film and Writing, to Film with a minor in Writing, to Film, to English-Communications, to Media Studies.

My favorite classes were creative writing and media criticism, which I recieved my highest marks in. I can remember the best paper I ever wrote, arguing the homoeroticism of the movie "Fight Club." Other than that, I hated my classes, I hated my classmates, and I hated my professors at the complete lack of humanity in them. They were carefully oiling the gears of next generation of media greats, and I refused to comply. They were taking the joy out of art, out of expression, and the whole process made me ill.

Oh Woe as me! Poor Pisces! Et Tu Brute? I lived in LA for about a year and that was enough for me to realize I never wanted to go back. I didn't want to become part of the Hollywood machine. I returned home to my high school friends, and went down a different road.

But thats a completely different story.

What's your post-high school tale?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dinner was so fun last night =) I hope we made your golden birthday a little fun. (Hopefully LB wasn't too spazzed out on ice cream, since all the aunties used it as a distraction ;) Anyways, hope your 'new year' is really fun and full of happiness. Love you!

KarmaTee said...

LOVE that you completely understand what I was talking about with the image thng! It's part of why I love living here so much. You can just sort of be yourself, and it's okay with everyone, even television producers. Happy birthday!

Anonymous said...

I've finally worked my way up through your blog to Feb! Woohoo!

My post high school tale: I'm working on a BA in English. I changed my major a million times before I finally settled on this, and I wish it were possible to major in 5+ things at once because I enjoy too many subjects.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this degree. I know I like editing and I LOVE the job I have as a writing tutor... so after graduation I just need to find a job similar to that :)