Duh.

So apparently somewhere along the way I forgot that graduate school is supposed to be a LEARNING experience. Apparently my brain found no room for mistakes of any kind and believed that all profs. expected me to come to school with a complete working knowledge of everything and the ability to write perfect prose.

Clearly this is wrong - and I figured out just how wrong today.

So I went to see Berlant - hanging my head in shame for this horrible (and upon rereading, incomprehensible) paper that I had written for her. And she was really nice and listened to me as I babbled on about how I usually don't write this poorly, and that I think I became obsessed with my archive etc. for, like, half an hour. And then she leans over and says what has obviously been on my mind the entire time "don't worry, I still respect you"

And I ran into the lounge and told a fellow student "she still respects me, even after that shitty paper!". At this moment, a professor who had been sitting in the lounge (unseen by me) started laughing aloud. And it comes to me in a triple shock 1) they expect us to make mistakes 2) the reason I was so upset about the paper isn't that I did poorly, but rather that I was tryingt to impress her and failed, and 3) she knew all that and said just the right thing to make me feel better.

Rock. and yet - Duh.

Damn I can be thickheaded sometimes.