September 14, 2004

• Can’t I just have one lousy day? One horrible terrible day? Is it too much to ask to be grumpy and angry and mean for one whole day? It’s not fair. BYU won’t let me be sad.

  Why can’t the whole world be like this?

  It started last night. My roommate talked on the phone until 2:30 in the morning. Because I have an eight o’clock class Tuesdays, I tried to go to bed a lot sooner. Like 11:30. It took me an hour to fall asleep, and then I woke up everytime he laughed or talked loud or . . . Ahhhh!

  And naturally the lack of sleep made me really really grumpy this morning. It didn’t help that I slept in and woke up at 7:35. I lept out out bed, got dressed, slapped on my glasses, tried not to notice that my hair was sticking up on one side, ate breakfast in the Morris Center, all in 20 minutes so that I could be in class by 8.

  I stand in the doorway at 8:03 and look around. There are three people in the classroom. You see last week my professor told us he was going to be out of town this week. I thought that meant that there would be a sub- or at the least an asignment on the board to work on. I was the only one who thought this.

  Lets just say I was having a bad morning. I stomped back uphill to my dorm where I colasped on my bed- my roommate still asleep. I took a twenty minute powernap and then started the morning right- with a shower and contacts. It was nice, but I was still fuming. I wanted to hit something.

  At my 10 o’clock Book of Mormon class I was still in a bad mood. I got really mad at the professor and kinda had to bottle it up. Then there was a devotional that was, eh, alright. At 12 I was still upset.

  But 12 is Brother Wulf Barsh’s class. He made us buy this expensive, delicate paper. It’s called Arches 88. It’s from France, and so it’s kinda tempermental. If you breath on it, the moisture in your breath makes it warp. Once you draw on it, your drawing is permanant- You cannot earase. If a bug lands on it, it is forever scarred.

  We met in front of the Maeser Building, where he talked for a bit and then gave us the daunting task of drawing the Maeser Building– Perfectly. If you make a mistake, you start over on another 3 dollar piece of paper. One would think that putting an angry, grumpy boy in an intense situation with pressure and stress in which he cannot mess up, would be a bad idea. Or maybe not.

  Class ended and I was nowhere near completion. I didn’t get it. I just couldn’t do it, but I was determined not to move from that spot until I got it. Several other people stayed, trying to figure it out. I sat there, staring at it till my eyes bleed. I moved rulers around, and triangles. Then all of a sudden I figured it out. It began to work, to come together. I stayed there until 3:40, but I made a darn good drawing. And it makes sense.

  At some point in the pressure I must have buckled. When I finished, it was the best feeling in the world. I was learning! I was overcoming my weakness in art- spatial drawing. I felt good. I felt proud. I felt like I had overcome everything.

  And now I’m in the best mood ever.

  I swear it’s like a curse. You cannot be unhappy for long in the happy bubble.

  • 6:24 pm
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