School's Out

Lately I've been thinking about school. I've been browsing through blogs by academics, including Bitch PhD and Sappho's Breathing and I recently learned that Jill from Feministe will be going to Law School. If you haven't read these women, go there now and learn lots of good stuff!

I was amazingly inept at college. I set myself up with huge expectations. When I failed to meet those expectations, I decided that I didn't deserve to finish my classes and earned incompletes. I scared myself out of handing in any work because I hadn't done all the primary and secondary reading. I became terrified of being judged.

The only exception was in classes in which the teacher was obviously phoning it in. I had a 19th Century American Literature course in which I did almost nothing but read the Cliff Notes for Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn and aced the course easily. This is because the teacher barely bothered to show up for class. There was a labor dispute of some sort and we all knew that class was a gimme.

Or the class I took on "Drifting Continents" -- a "Hail Mary!" course put up by the Geology Department to fill the science requirement for College of Liberal Arts students. The professor ran out of course material half way through the quarter. He started giving out bogus assignments. We spent one class period filling in the state names in an outline map of the U.S.

I wrote an essay about the fossil evidence for continental drift in the style of a Fairy Tale about a huge clam bake in Gonwanaland. I not only got an A on the paper, I got to sit through a class of the teacher reading my essay because there wasn't anything else to talk about and it was the one bright spot in his utter boredom.

But when I respected a professor, I became incredibly intimidated and incapable of handing in my work. I convinced myself that nothing I did or said would be good enough. Mostly, I would stop attending class. I would do all the reading and the secondary reading and any additional reading that sprang from that. Because the subjects I took really interested me and I sincerely wanted to learn more. But the more I learned, the more I realized I needed to know. I imagine I mystified my professors.

I don't know where this particular phobia came from. I was never in the best of situations when I was in college. I suffered from repeated, untreated clinical depressions. I worked full time. I was living on the edge financially and involved in abusive relationships. Things weren't rosy in general. Any of these factors may be to blame.

Yet, I still retain that fear of being graded. I took a class in mystery writing a couple of years ago from a writer I admire and it practically killed me to turn in my writing. I doubt my abilities and am always shocked when someone compliments my writing ability.

I've had tons of training. I was a successful journalist throughout the 1970s. I studied Latin and Spanish and understand the basics of grammar. I understand the nuts and bolts of writing. I studied Shakespeare and Milton and many more writers. I am well-read and have a phenomenal memory for literature. I'm not saying these things to brag -- I'm saying that I've put in the time and had the benefit of training from knowledgeable teachers.

Yet when I take a class, I live in desperate fear of being judged. My confidence level always hovers around zero.

So why is it that I retain little fear in regard to blogging?

Is it because I haven't "come out" as a blogger to my family or my friends?

Is it because blogging is a new concept and doesn't have the traditions and established culture of academia?

Damned if I know.