Category Archives: School

Back to school again. Again.

September 1, 2011 – 7:43 pm
Filed under As It Happened, School
10 Comments

I started graduate school, or at least the orientation part of graduate school two weeks ago. Let me tell you, classes haven’t even started yet and I feel like I’m going to have a total mental and physical breakdown.

I’m attending The Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. For anybody who is wondering what the hell that means, it is, as far as I can tell, a fancy way of saying “design history.” In other words: the poor man’s art history. Why, you might ask, have I decided to go back to school? Aren’t I tired of academia, especially after five years and four different academic institutions? Don’t I want a break? Isn’t my body about to disintegrate like a stack of Jenga bricks from sheer exhaustion? Yes, yes, and yes. And to answer the first question: I’m insane.

The only concrete reason that I can give for my decision to jump right back into school is that, despite all of the hair-tearing anxiety-driven meltdowns it causes, I kind of like it. I love to let my brain act like the sponge that it is and soak up new facts, images, and beautiful things. I like an excuse to buy new books. I like feeling like I know what I’m talking about. Also— having a master’s degree can’t hurt.

Anyhow— the school I’m attending seems great so far and, aside from being absolutely scared shitless, I’m pretty excited about it. Not only is it the head bitch when it comes to design history, it’s also located in a sickeningly gorgeous townhouse on the upper west side. It’s kind of like Hogwarts. If Hogwarts was in Manhattan and populated with midcentury furniture, iMacs, and anthropologists.

But, anyway– back to the mental and physical breakdown bit.

Orientation started two weeks ago and I feel like I have spent two weeks battling a pack of horny grizzly bears after taking a bottle of ambien. For the first week, it was 9-6 every day, with each hour fully accounted for in our schedule. These people want us to be seriously orientated. If I didn’t know my orientation before last week, this week I am a rock-solid butch lesbian with a rainbow tattoo.

On the first day of orientation I was nervous to the point of nearly defecating myself. I got up at the crack of dawn, determined to be the first to arrive, just so that people would be forced to introduce themselves to me and not vice versa. Once people did start arriving and the obligatory introductions began, I became even more nervous. As a person coming into a humanities graduate program after getting a BFA from an art school, I felt a little bit like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. These were serious people. These were people who knew how to write a bibliography without the aid of Citation Machine. They had jobs at The Met and degrees from Harvard and Oxford. And then there was me.

On top of all of the anxiety that comes along with meeting new [and obscenely smart] people, I had a language exam hanging over my head. Bard, like many arts-related graduate schools, requires all incoming students to take (and pass) a language exam in either French, Italian, or German. I decided on French, based solely on the fact that I had taken French I two years ago. I was absolutely certain I would fail and my fears came to fruition in the grade I received the next day:

They really don’t beat around the bush.

So, in addition to a seemingly endless stream of orientation meetings and shenanigans, I had a language class to take every evening. A long, hard, grueling language class.

Still, I don’t want it to sound like orientation has been nothing but waterboarding and torture for two weeks. I have met some very lovely, interesting people so far. Despite my first impressions, I have found that people at this school actually have kind-hearted souls beneath their intimidating experience and far-reaching intellects.

I am incredibly exhausted from these two weeks, but I’m also BEYOND EXCITED for classes to start. I’m sure they will seem like a cake walk compared to the boot camp that orientation has been. My course list is as follows: Survey of Decorative Arts, Colonial Revival, The Arts of The Baroque, and Craft and Design In The USA. Sounds like a pretty kick-ass semester!

As if high school couldn’t get any worse

January 7, 2011 – 3:40 pm
Filed under School
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This is City Honors School in Buffalo, New York. It’s where I went to high school. Although the school once ranked number four out of all high schools in the nation and boasts a full-IB program and outstanding college acceptance rates, I pretty much loathed every second I spent there. Despite my still passionate dislike for my four years in high school, I do have to admit: the building is pretty beautiful. Designed in 1914 by the architectural firm Esenwin & Johnson, the structure is a wonderful example of the Beaux Art style. Covered almost entirely with ivory-white terra cotta bricks, the building stood out like a shining beacon within one of the city’s most depressed neighborhoods. Lovingly called “the school on top of the hill,” City Honors up until recently resided atop a lush, tree-filled hill that ran all the way from its entrance down to Best Street. The hill not only functioned as a beautiful natural frame for the luminous building, it was also home to numerous school events like the annual back-to-school barbecue. These days are over.

As of this school year, the hill has been decimated. After the school accepted a hefty sum of money to revamp itself, it wasted no time at all hiring the worst architect possible to build what is, to put it lightly, a tumor on the side of its facade:

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Although this wretched grey-tiled monstrosity of a building would be hideous all by itself, it is made all the more so because of its juxtaposition with its 1914 predecessor. To make matters worse, the structure, which looks more like the loading dock for a Wal-Mart than an actual building, is actually the first thing that people see when they approach the school. It actually blocks the original building from sight.

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Mr. Transfer McGee

November 3, 2009 – 5:41 pm
Filed under As It Happened, College, School
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So, remember when I decided that Pratt wasn’t really the right school for me and I transferred to Brooklyn College and then to FIT for Photography? And remember when I figured out that FIT wasn’t all that great either so I transferred back to Brooklyn College for Art History? And then when I changed my major to Art? Well! Mr. Indecisive Tielman is at it again!

I’m back at Pratt. The school I was at to begin with. But it doesn’t stop there. When I transferred back to Pratt, I went back as a Photography major. This seemed to make the most sense, because that’s my ultimate career goal. I’d like to be a photographer. However, once I started taking Photography classes again, I decided that, hmmmm, maybe this isn’t quite for me and, I don’t know, maybe I should change majors again. So, I changed my major to Art History, something that, despite my career goals, I enjoy studying much more. I’m weird like that.

Alright. Let’s get this straight. This is my fourth transfer. I’ve been at a different school for the past five semesters. And. On top of all of this, this is the fourth time that I’ve switched my major. Really. Count it.

First school: Pratt. Major: Photography.

Transfer one: Brooklyn College. Major: Undeclared.

Transfer two: FIT. Major: Photography.

Transfer three: Brooklyn College again! Major: Art History. Then Art!

Transfer four: Pratt! Major: Photography. Then Art History!

What, you may ask, is wrong with me? I don’t know, I will respond, but I think this is all the evidence you need to see that I’m absolutely insane.

My reasoning behind switching majors makes sense to me, given that I plan on going to grad school for some form of Art History, but that still doesn’t explain my Sarah Palin-esque inability to stay in one place. I know that I’ve made the right decision with all of this, because as soon as I left Pratt, I immediately wanted to go back. The fact that I hadn’t tried out anything else, like the significantly less expensive tuitions at FIT and Brooklyn College, was what forced me to consider other options.

I think that I am finally in a place where I can finally just sit back and relax. And I mean that in strictly the transferring sense. [We'll see how long that lasts.] I’ve been so out of my mind busy with schoolwork this entire semester that I have not had a single second to be calm. And I’m pretty sure my body gave itself the flu just to have a few days off.

Starting fresh is getting old.

December 9, 2008 – 1:28 pm
Filed under As It Happened, College, School
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The other day, I was complaining to my friend that it didn’t seem cold enough to be December. “It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be Christmas in like twenty days! I want some snow!” My current self wishes I had kicked my past self for saying such things. It was so cold and windy yesterday that my face felt like it was being blow torched as I walked about doing my errands. On top of tutoring a girl in my Photoshop class, going to the library and a screenplay reading yesterday, I also woke up at six in the morning to go register for classes. That’s a lot of walking around in the cold.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this to that many people, but I’ve decided to transfer schools. Again. This semester has given me a little bit too much time to think about where I’m going in life and it’s totally freaking me out. I mentioned a little while back that I was kind of having an early onset midlife identity crisis. That was also around the time that I decided to change majors. And schools.

At least I won’t be going to a totally new school. If I had, it would be the fourth college I’ve attended in three years. Instead, I’m transferring back to Brooklyn College. For Art History. A lot of people are puzzled at this decision and wonder why on earth I would want to study something that is (a) so boring and (b) so not photography. I think it’s mainly because, as I said in my previous rant, photo school kind of feels like auto mechanic school to me. When I’m done with college, I don’t want to feel like all I can do is fix a car really well. Also, sitting and learning about how to properly color-correct images is far more excruciating than listening to a lecture about famous artists.

Anyway. I was trying to figure out how to register on the Brooklyn College website a few days ago, when I got a message that said that I could not register until my designated appointment on Monday at 8am. Confused, I called the Brooklyn College information booth and asked them what was up with that. The girl on the phone seemed a little perplexed as well, but told me that I should go to the office of Academic Advisement at my appointment time. So I did. I woke up at six in the morning, left at seven, and arrived at Brooklyn College at eight. After an hour of commuting in the freezing cold, I arrived to find that everything was closed.

I went to the office of Academic Advisement. Closed. I walked downstairs to go to the information booth. Closed. I went to the basement to see if anybody in the registrar’s office could help me. The woman there unlocked the door only to tell me that she had no idea what I was talking about. I decided, after waiting around and going back and forth between the closed Academic Advisement office and the information booth, that perhaps my designated appointment time was just the time at which I could register online. When I finally returned home and went online, I discovered that that was the case.

For some reason, all but one of Brooklyn College’s art history classes were night classes and already filled, so I had to go with History of Architecture. The other classes I’ve registered for thus far are French 2; Knowledge, Reality and Values; Shaping of The Modern World; and People, Power and Politics. This schedule seems almost like the exact opposite to what I’m used to and, while I really am tired of what I’m used to, I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for this.

Maybe I should buy a sports car.

September 23, 2008 – 2:41 pm
Filed under School, Thoughts
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I haven’t written in a really long time. Or taken pictures. Or done anything remotely creative. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m in a rut, because I don’t necessarily feel bored. It’s just that most of my attention has been focused elsewhere…. I guess it’s kind of untrue when I say that I haven’t written in a really long time. I have been writing, just not on this blog. The writing I have been doing has been confined to my actual paper-and-pen non-electronic journal. It’s kind of a good thing, too, because I don’t think I want anybody to ever read the sort of things I write when I’m so stressed out of my mind that I can hardly handle simple things, like breathing or eating. It’s really not a good thing when you’ve become so emo that you feel like Holden Caulfield and are strangely drawn to Avril Lavigne music.

I attribute a majority of the stress I’ve been experiencing to the fact that I seem to have been having some kind of freaky, early-onset midlife crisis. Flipping through the pages of my journal, one can see that most of the entries are incredibly tragic and egocentric rants about how “I don’t know what I want anymore” and how “the past is like a lollipop, hidden inside of a topless glass jar.” Seriously, I am not right in the head when I write this shit.

A little bit of explanation: I’ve recently started a new semester at the third college I’ve attended in three years. When I first started school at Pratt two years ago, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to go to college for four years, graduate, and immediately start a career as a fabulous and ridiculously successful famous fashion photographer. Now, I’m not so sure.

I can’t tell if this is because I’m growing older and am becoming simultaneously more realistic and more interested in other things…. or if I just have massive commitment issues. I’d like to think it’s the former. Right now, I’m studying at FIT and, while all of the classes and teachers are totally fine in terms of quality, I keep getting this feeling that this is not what I want to be doing. At all. I do want to be a photographer….. but I’m not sure if that’s the only thing that I want to do. The problem with many art schools is that really, when it comes down to it, they’re basically like trade schools. They teach you to be the best at one thing. I think that my problem with this is that I want to feel like I’m learning rather than feel like I’m being trained. I want to be able to hold up a conversation about something other than f-stops and correct white balance. Mostly, though, I want to have options. I don’t want to be pigeon-holed into a specific career or lifestyle. I suppose that, in a sense, knowing what I don’t want means that I know what I do want, but I’m still more confused than ever.

Light, Color, And Design

November 17, 2006 – 4:16 pm
Filed under Photos, School
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The Work Room And Drawing Class

October 31, 2006 – 12:10 pm
Filed under Photos, School
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“Number 4, Biotch!”

May 1, 2006 – 9:26 pm
Filed under School
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My father had me stop at the newspaper box this morning because he said he saw my school’s name in the headline and he wanted to know whether it was good news or bad news. It was pretty good news. I picked up the paper to learn that just today, my school was announced as number four on Newsweek’s list of the 100 best schools in the country. I was a bit confused because I had seen what I thought was that issue in an optometrist’s office last week. Now that I think about it, it was probably last year’s list which makes me seriously judge the ability of the optometrist.

To celebrate, my principal had the whole school come to the auditorium at eleven to make a big scene for the news cameras and special guests (the mayor, the superintendent, etc, etc). On the way in the auditorium, students handed out signs that we were supposed to wave as the cameras panned over us. The signs read such things as “Number 4, Biotch!” “We love AP and IB!” and “Dr. Kresse [our principal] is sexy!” You’ve got to hand it to us. For being officially one of the nerdiest schools in the country, we’ve still got somewhat of a sense of humor.

So many things have happened this school year! There was the dead body in the park where we have gym, the finger-loss of the technology teacher, a new principal, a whole bunch of other stuff…. and now this! I guess this is our…. well, I was going to say lucky, but losing your finger and being found dead aren’t exactly lucky things…. so, I guess I’ll say “interesting.” I guess this was our interesting year!

Ruts suck.

March 3, 2006 – 10:31 am
Filed under School
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In the past few weeks, it seems that the only thing that I’ve managed to get up on this website is photos. While photos are great, they don’t really tell you what’s been going on in my life. Besides having tons of time on my hands. So. What has been going on in my life? Hardly anything. I almost regret clicking that “New Entry” button in Movable Type. I don’t want this to be one of those entries.

I mean, I have been up to some things. I got into four schools (Hunter College, Brooklyn College, School of Visual Arts, and Pratt) and I got a partial scholarship from Pratt. I got my Cooper Union home test in right on the nick of time and I’m still waiting to hear back from them. I think it was the end of the whole College-FREAK-OUT thing that started the having nothing to do. I have nothing to distract me and worry me now other than my school work. And that’s just too dull to get scared about.

When you’re little…. or even a Junior in high school, you might think that Senior year is going to be the hardest thing EVER. It’s not. It’s more like first grade all over again except way easier and with three hours of free time every day. I only have three required classes left and one of them (literature) isn’t even every day. Since laptops are now banned from Buffalo Public Schools, I’m forced to use the school eMacs and surf the web totally aimlessly. After about two weeks of doing that for four periods a day, that gets kind of boring.

My life at home isn’t all that interesting either. Before, I was doing all sorts of productive things. Photo shoots, art projects, last-minute college applications. Now I’m just bored. (I washed the dishes yesterday! SCORE!) I’m in a rut for the first time in such a long time. I NEED TO DO SOMETHING. But just not my Triceratops presentation for Evolution. Please don’t slap me for complaining about having no work to do.

I’m really not that good at reading out loud.

January 9, 2006 – 1:51 pm
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I’m horrible at speaking out loud with a group of people larger than like two. Even two is tough. It’s not really public speaking that I’m horrible at. I usually dread any sort of public speaking endeavor, but at least with “public speaking,” I can say what I want to and I come out of the experience not looking like a total retard. With public reading, though, I’m horrible. I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m reading out loud…. I don’t know when to pause for air….

Today in Literature, we needed to read this practice essay or whatever to help us learn how the IB grades essays or something. The teacher asked random students to read from the essay. I was pretty confident that she wouldn’t call on me. I mean, I’m sure she noticed my whole not-being-able-to-read-in-front-of-large-crowds thing. Apparently not.

I’m sitting there in my own little world when all of the sudden, my teacher is like, “Max, why don’t you read now?”

Crap. That name-calling alone pushed enough adrenaline into my system to make me act is if I’d just consumed five hundred billion Red Bulls. I had no choice but to begin reading the paragraph out loud like I usually do. “Uhhh……”

I’m usually pretty darn terrible at reading anything out loud in school but today I reached a new level of terribleness. I didn’t even know there were levels that low. You know how when you’re reading something out loud and you really feel awkward at first so you try to reposition yourself or clear your throat to make it better but it only makes it worse? Much, much, much, MUCH worse? That’s kind of how it was. My little reading ditty started out bad and it continued like “Blah blah blah….” Alright I’m kind of uncomfortable now. I can feel my face turning red. Crap. CRAP. Do something! “COUGH. COUGH. — Blah blah blah blah blah…..” Oh no! I’m running out of air! In mid sentence! What should I do? Uhhh…. I guess pausing for five seconds would work…. “PAUSE…… PAUSE….. —blah blah blah and then BLAH.” Oh GOD. My voice is so shaky. I sound like I’m trying to talk while operating a jackhammer! EFFING EFF EFF EFF! What should I do? Take another long pause! RIGHT IN MID SENTENCE AT A PAGE TURN! “Uhhhh….uh….. uh….. Blah blah….. uhh….. COUGH. COUGH.” Holy effing monkey butt. This paragraph is A LOT longer than I thought it would be. Ohhh God. Ooooohhh Gooood. “Hm. Uh. Hm. Uh…. COUGH. Blah. Blah blah blah blah blah…. COUGH. COUGH.”

This is where my literature teacher interrupts me. “Do you want me to continue?”

“Yes,” I say as I bow my head in shame.