My original academic adviser was pretty kickin’. He was French. Talked with French accent. Had a sense of humor and everyonceinawhile would send out E-mails just to show he cared. I liked talking to him even though I really only ever went in to see him when I had real academic concerns. Well believe me, I have academic concerns.

Anyone who has talked to me in the last couple of weeks knows that I’m seriously doubting my decisions regarding school. I wonder if I should have gone to an art school. But then I remember that it was hard enough to deal with the larger-than-life egos of the mediocre artists in high school, that in a real specialized art school I would be even less able to compete, that I will never be comfortable with the thought of giving up my books. Really when it comes down it the reason I didn’t go to CCS regardless of their fancy scholarships is that I don’t believe I have enough talent to make it in life on art alone.

So what do I do instead? Get accepted to a university’s liberal arts college. Then to its art college. I completed my first year as an undecided freshman who realized linguistics was not the way to go. That art history would take me only to teaching. Anthropology was cool, but what the hell was I going to do with that? I hated the research position I had for a psychology lab so much that it totally obliterated any interest in a psychology degree.

For my second year of college I’m mostly an art student. I glue paper, I weld steel, I carve wood. It’s fun. But I’m not focusing on any particular area. I have no particular area in which I would like to focus. It’s a roundabout way to teach me these techniques and I am getting no strong foundation in any particular medium and I’m forced to jump through hoops that allegedly will teach me about how to form concepts. I hate to say it but I don’t necessarily have faith in the program. But I’m new so I keep holding out for that moment where it will click and I’ll know I’ve made the right decision. I hold out because I don’t know what else to do. Because I want it to work. I don’t know what I’ll do if it doesn’t work.

I’m stressing. I’m stressing real bad. I feel pressured to get involved with groups at school but I haven’t come across any that I feel enough of a fiery passion for that it would entice me to enter a socially stressful situation in order to get involved. I went from weekly volunteering at both a nursing home and hospital to not volunteering regularly anywhere for the past year an a half. I haven’t even made time to go give blood and I’ve been eligible again for a while. I feel awkward and detached from my closest friends. I feel frustrating and annoying to my friends at school. I’ve even managed to upset my mother in the last couple of days. I am not doing well.

But then I get this E-mail and this E-mail says that my old adviser has moved to Atlanta. That I now have a new adviser and his name is Patrick. Patrick has a BFA in Graphic Communications and an MA in Communication Studies. He kind of looks like Bernie Mac. The only thing missing is him telling me that he chose to learn Arabic because of some childhood fantasy and I would think we were twins separated at birth. I think someone somewhere has heard my calls of distress and thrown me a bone. It may not be the life preserve that I needed but it’s something.