I Was Getting Ready to Be a Threat

It's been quite a week. The night after crying into dishwater, still with a nasty cold, I also got a nasty headache of the possibly days-long and nights-up-in-tears-of-pain-and-frustration variety just before going to bed. Which is never good, but was particularly bad as i was to get my grades back on three essays from last semester the next day, and also had a long-awaited meeting to discuss my disseration ideas with that glorious professor who was on sabbatical last semester. So I was a little tense when I went to bed (quite likely the cause of the headache in the first place).

And I dreamed. Oh boy, did I ever dream. About getting my grades back and having them be bad. Only the essays were not the ones I actually wrote--about Regional Innovation, the World Bank and Sustainable Development--oh no. In the dream, I had written a freakin' brilliant paper about German artist Joseph Beuys and his work as a statement on food scarcity and deprivation and emergency measures required to address them.

ASIDE: (i.e. not in the dream, but a word of explanation) Joseph Beuys has long been one of my favorite artists, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't bring the book I have about his work and his theories with me to Wales (he was also a sort of activist for human power over the future and our world, though i must admit it's been years and I don't really remember what he said. I do seem to remember he was strange and cool) Anyway, the story/myth about Beuys goes like this: He was shot down over Crimea in WWII and was freezing, but was rescued by a tribe of Tartars who coated him in fat and wrapped him in felt and nursed him back to health. True or not, no one really knows. But anyway, much of his work is sculpture and installation incorporating fat and felt and ideas of rescue and warmth. I've always liked the images, but had never seen his sculpture or installations in person. A couple of weeks ago, in the week I had between last semester's exams and the start of this semester's classes, J and I took the Megabus to London for a few days of museum-hopping. All of it was incredible, but my favorite thing was the Tate Modern. I hadn't researched what they had in their collection so I was ecstatic to turn a corner and see this Beuys installation:



It's not the best photo in the world, but it's the most evocative I could find on the net. (In my dream and my memory, it's in color and you see the side of the van and the sleds out behind to the distance, but it's always photographed this way instead.) It's called "The Pack" and it is just 24 sleds spilling out behind an old VW bus, each sled has a survival kit of a roll of felt (for warmth and protection), a lump of animal fat (for energy and sustenance) and a torch (for navigation and orientation). Beuys is quoted on the Tate website as saying of the work: ‘This is an emergency object: an invasion by the pack. In a state of emergency the Volkswagen bus is of limited usefulness, and more direct and primitive means must be taken to ensure survival.’

So that's the basis of my dream, and the paper in it. Even when I woke up, I thought it quite a good idea for a paper. But alas, in the dream, I went to school and got my marks back and had been given a horrible grade. I was very upset, but quiet until I overheard two other students talking to professors about their similarly bad marks on papers incorporating art and/or literature into a social science essay. Well, then I was livid and I stood up and gave a rousing speech about how this school failed to realize the importance of art as a lense through which to view social and environmental concerns, and how these papers represented some of the most creative work being done in the department. It was exhilarating.

And then I woke up. And my head was throbbing. And I had to really go and get my marked essays and meet with Professor Perfect. I'm afraid I can't tell you my marks, because I promised myself that, good or bad, I wouldn't tell the whole Internet. This was a measure to avoid feeling like shame or pride were making my decision for me. I will say that I was greatly relieved and headache-free by the end of the day. Also, and unrelated to grades, when I read my papers after not looking at them for a month, I was shocked to see that the language and tone were so professional-sounding and organized. I think there's hope for me yet.

And my meeting with Professor Perfect? Well, after our chat, he asked if he could be my dissertation supervisor. Which was exactly what I had hoped for in preparing my notecards to talk to him. And I didn't even have to ask. So he's declared that he'll work that out with my Course Director if at all possible. But it shouldn't be a problem.

This semester is sooooo much better than last. I can't even begin to tell you.