:: a.whisper.in.water ::

:: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 ::

A letter to my Dean, thus cementing my instability:

At 06:52 AM 5/13/03 -0400, you wrote:
Hello again...


After a sleepless week that finds me just as far behind schedule as I was a week ago despite an unquestionable diligence in attempting to finish off late work, I find myself in even greater jeopardy of being unable to complete the work and finals assigned to me this semester, a grave academic concern indeed. My problem isn't as simple as pure sloth, or an unwillingness to work despite the dire conditions necessitating my doing so, but rather a crippling inability to do so that has plagued my entire academic career, but never so badly as this. I've been walking upcampus and back down to the apartments this week in an almost absurd fashion, looking for the right place to work that will allow for not only minimal distractions, but also doesn't inspire a level of environmental discomfort I can only attribute to some unknown set of compulsions. It's really hard to describe well, but it simply boils down to an intense feeling of needing to be Someplace Else to work, and not wherever I am at the time. These compulsions have most likely always been there, but whereas before I would stop working when I hit this wall, I didn't have that option this week, and so had to keep moving around.


Somewhat more relevant to the title of the e-mail, I also lost a few days to the most unfortunate end of my relationship with my girlfriend of 30 months and two weeks. I would decidedly be lying most gravely if I said that I was no longer affected by it. Luckily, her semester at NYU was over at the time that this happened, so this isn't impacting her academic performance.


To be honest, I see my current predicament as near-impossible to manage, and certainly impossible for me. I can't imagine how to go about tackling all my assignments, especially in light of an unflinching perfectionism that I've been unable to suppress. To give an example, I've been working on an English essay from about 10pm to shortly before starting this e-mail at 6:15 am. I've only produced three pages of work, and that's making the sorts of concessions we talked about earlier, wherein I can't do the level of work I want to, because it would take (and has been taking) an unreasonably long time to complete. Even at my present working pace, I would be hard-pressed to finish my 16 remaining pages of English work for my final essays, much less finish the staggering amount of labwork that just wouldn't go away despite a 38-hour period of mostly working on it.


It is in light of these events that I request any advice or assistance you could give. I don't mean to be so drawn-out and pessimistic about a relatively simple message, but I don't feel as though my situation was really understood during the last meeting (I did a rather poor job of communicating it, I feel), and so I seek to include personal details that give a sense of what my issues are, and how my time gets spent, as I know that's a major contributor to my persistent academic difficulties. Thanks.


Respectfully,


-Aziz-


:: Aziz 4:21 AM [+] ::
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