I, Curtis

What’s up with me?

• Today is is rainy and sort of chilly outside, but I’m in the library, where it feels like 90.
• A lot of what is going on lately in my life has to do with my aspirations to enroll at a graduate school.
  • I have completed the easy parts of my grad school applications, the basic biographical stuff.
  • I still have to find people to write recommendations for me. I have a few prospects for people, but I feel awkward asking for them.
  • I have to write a statement of purpose for each of my potential graduate schools.
  • I still have to gather my official transcripts, the unofficials are in.
• In my undergraduate world
  • Have to complete a sociology paper
  • Test is due on Friday in my Animal behavior class, I’m a little freaked about that, its the first one, and I don’t like the class that much
  • There is a quiz due on Sunday in Child Psychopathology
  • There is a quiz due on Sunday in History and Systems of Psychology
  • I have to manage to keep myself focused on all of my coursework to maintain my GPA for graduate school

Got up at around 5am, and I didn’t do much for the first few hours except read email, watch some stuff on YouTube, bookmark some shit in Del.Icio.us and things like that. After a while I ate breakfast, and went back to email. I also read the feedback in my digital photography class from my instructor. He finally got around to grading the course. I won’t know until tomorrow morning what my grade is (after the registrar processes grades overnight).

After I got un-lazy I went to the wheel again today. I practiced some bowls and plates using the new texture I started working with. Overall I am happy… but it has been too long since I last trimmed bowls and plates. It is quite challenging to do… remember what hardness level is just right for trimming and things like that. I will get back in the hang of it though. I plan to work on ceramics for the next two or three weeks until I get fully back into the swing of things. I will be working on ceramics at home right up until I go back to class and I start working on a project there. I plan to have large functional objects as my project. I will be returning to bowls as well as working on my newly acquired techniques from last fall for coil building on wheel forms to make things like tall bottles… things I could never do from a whole lump of clay. After working on the wheel for a little while I took a short break for lunch and returned to the week again until I had to clean up to make dinner. After dinner was cooking I went outside to take some pictures for a friend. After dinner was finished being eaten, I went back outside to let Chris take some pictures of me.

Once that excitement ended, back inside for some trimming of the remaining pieces. Now I have cleaned up again and I am exhausted. I just remembered I still have to empty my slurry/refuse clay bucket before bed… then I can sleep.

I spent the last two days not going to sleep very easily because of things going through my head, worries about my future. As my summer classes are coming to a close I have  nothing to do and will have nothing to do for over a month. I laid awake with thoughts racing through my head and being unable to get myself to settle… to just push the thoughts out. I have been unable to communicate my feelings effectively either… until now I guess, but I don’t know how effective this will be. I have been staring at the UNCC website for a while tonight, looking at all of the changes that are happening, how the university is progressing forward and things are changing… the Art department is no longer part of the College of Arts and Sciences… and the College of Arts and Sciences is no longer the College of Arts and Sciences. I don’t know my purpose, or my direction for my future. Everything is so uncertain and my life seems to be presently up in the air (and sleeping on this weird pattern again isn’t helping). I find myself not being grabbed by the possibility of a BFA because it just isn’t me. I have laughed at myself for the simplicity of other additional degree options, but they seem… unfulfilling. I could complete 2 semesters (30 hours) and have a BA in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Humanities, or I could go for 3 semesters (45 hours) and have a BS in Psychology. I feel completely lost now.

What makes this feeling even worse is that people around me and people I interact with don’t seem to know, and they keep interacting with me like everything is normal with me, and expecting me to react to them in the same way. Only problem is I interact with some really fragile people and they are starting to piss me off. Seems like only the strong people seem to comfort me lately.

Earlier I woke up and started thinking about what I seriously wanted to do NOW… not in my five year plan, but now.. at this moment in time. With the way I feel presently I would love to start working on some sort of planned ceramics work, and build my online gallery and perhaps an online store of ceramics as well. I have a basement full of ceramics that I have made, and nothing to do with them. The presence of so many makes me feel like I really shouldn’t make more, but to feel useful and active I need something to actually do during a day. I guess the first step would be waking up early enough to be able to get something done during the day.

A person is given purpose in their self-identity. People self-identify by their "role" in life… what they do. What am I? Am I an artist? I don’t know… I hate my work from last Fall, it has no point to me. I don’t feel like I am emotionally deep enough to be an artist. I do know that I am a potter. I would be very happy sitting at my wheel for 8 – 10 hours a day, throwing pot after pot. It seems like something I can do in life and it makes me happy. Know what is even better about it? I like the way that my ceramics can make people feel. I don’t know how many people I have given a bowl to who have declared it their "special bowl", or in some cases, a special set of bowls. I like when I feel like I have done something that others value. Isn’t that what the entire point of existence is?

Parts of me reject being a potter. Potters are old guys covered in clay, right? I find myself most comfortable in basketball shorts and basketball sneakers a lot of the time, and clay makes those things really messy. So why would I do ceramics professionally? I guess its sort of like turning in the baggy shorts and sneakers for a business suit, except, as a potter I can still wear jeans and comfortable boots. I guess part of my problem goes back to never in my life really seeing a potter as being "hot" (except maybe Travis Owens, and he’s just an overachiever). Maybe thats my fear about that "life track", construction guys are hot, potters just aren’t.

Information Technology still excites me I guess, but just isn’t something that calls to me or gives me any great sense of satisfaction at this time. I love things technical, including photography, but the expression I need isn’t there.

I thought about posting this entry to a special category called "Everything" or perhaps "Nothing", but given that it explains my recent behaviors and feelings, i’m filing it as "sup?".

Not much again today. Woke up kind of late, which really felt good. I went to help my aunt some more today. We got a lot done, painted some cement flowers, oiled a glider, pruned some bushes, places a glow in the dark mushroom and watched National Treasure 2 while eating some Italian fast food (I had Garlic-Herb Roasted Chicken with Broccoli in a cream sauce). At varying points during the day I also took some pictures. I don’t know how well or not they came out. I will check on that in the morning, hopefully before going on a hike.

Just to let everyone know. I am ok and doing fine. I have had a lot on my mind this week, some stuff I’ve been dealing with. Nothing to be concerned about, I just need to get myself to use the weekend to chill and get back in the groove of things.
Most readers/friends seem to know that the more I post the happier I am as a person. The less I post, the more depressed I am. Well… i’ve posted a lot this month, but not so much in the last few days. The last few days have actually been happy for me. Fairly uneventful, but still… very happy. Next week I’m hoping for eventful and happy.