sifir

I don't know how I got into this school or this MA program. The only class I'm actually enjoying (despite being as bad a student in it as in any other context) is the one that isn't actually very related to my declared research area and doesn't really fit under the purview of my program. The other two classes, well, 1) I consistently find the readings to be vague at best and utterly pointless at worst, and 2) I have no sense of what a proper understanding would actually constitute. Looking at my midterm paper prompts, well, I was halfway able to get a handle on one of them, but for the other class, it's as if I'm looking at magical incantations which suffuse me with an impression of urgent but completely alien meaning, and I can neither comprehend nor articulate the requested analyses. I'm not exaggerating. Ten pages due tomorrow (by tomorrow? by the end of tomorrow? instructor did not specify and I cannot bring myself to ask) and I am still staring at a completely blank page wondering what the hell I'm supposed to be writing. I think I might actually fail that class, actually. How does that work, in grad school? Do they just throw you out, or just delay your progress? I mean, at this point, if I were a rich person, I would probably just drop out of my own volition and look into some way of rendering myself unconscious for the rest of the academic year or until the shame wears off, whichever comes first. But I borrowed money for this, I sank money not only into tuition but also housing, transportation, utilities, and the like. Sunk costs. So yeah, I need to figure out how to deal with the undesirable novelty of literal failure, rather than giving up in my natural weak-willed fashion. I'm a little astonished that I was able to front so well that an admissions committee actually thought I deserved a spot in their graduate program. They gave me money, so surely it can't have been wholly motivated by financial need. //edit: Should I keep throwing myself at this wall, or move on to the activities required to maintain a base level of performance in my other classes, including the one that's of less relevance to my initially declared research interest? As you can see, my framing of the problem is quite clearly suggestive of the kind of answer I want to hear; less clear is whether that's the correct answer.