Art History and Me: Why I Fail At It

Okay, I realize I'm in Florence on an art history program. It didn't occur to me until I started working on my midterm for, "The Politics of Art in Renaissance Florence," that this was a really bad idea. I suck at art history. I love art. I do. I love to draw, and paint, and make kids into color mixing robots at the Art Academy. I love to go to museums and look at art, especially the art I feel like looks like me on the inside (which I've decided actually looks like the pit of a peach). But I fucking suck at art history itself, especially how it relates to Christianity. I don't know who any of the saints are. I don't know the life of the Virgin. I don't really care to know these things. The art history class at Knox has been my lowest grade in college so far. I started going to the counselor because I was so depressed about the low grades I was getting on papers I thought were good (among other things). I've been avoiding working on this midterm, because it scares the shit out of me. I have to write four essays and so far I have part of an outline for one. It's going to be a long weekend. I'm considering shutting myself in my room for most of it. I think it will do me good. It's strange though, I've forgotten what a good distraction homework is. It's what I did last year: I worked on schoolwork until I forgot about everything else. That's why I understand German and not Italian. In Italian I sit, staring out the window and think about what's going on in my life. When I was in German I sat making and memorizing German flashcards, and not thinking about anything else. I started to dream in lists of German. As much as I complained about the work, it was kind of nice. That's the other thing; I've hated doing the readings here. I mean, no one really likes reading non-fiction about anything (or atleast in my opinion), but this is terrible. At Knox I get to read things about feminism and sexuality, and terrific things like that. I've never felt so stupid as I have while reading gender theory, but I don't mind reading it because it's interesting. People don't believe me when I tell them how interesting gender and women's studies is, but seriously it's amazing.

This is why I am going to stay in school forever.