I guess I don't really know if this is a big deal or if I'm just being dramatic. I'm 39 and I've spent the last four years and every cent of my savings on this MFA. I'm literally broke. Like, eating-cereal-for-dinner broke. Last Tuesday was my thesis defense and I just... I felt like such a liar. I was standing in front of these three professors who think I’m some kind of visionary, talking about the *topography of grief* or whatever pretentious crap I wrote in my artist statement. I mean I don't even know if I believe in it anymore. Whatever. Dr. Sterling kept asking these really deep, probing questions about my use of negative space and the *intertextuality* of the medium. I think maybe I sounded coherent? I used words like visceral and liminality because that’s what you do, right? You use the big words so they don’t notice you’re actually a mess.