The professional readiness class we're taking this semester, the last in a series of four, isn't accomplishing what I think it's meant to accomplish. Instead of feeling ready for fearlessly foisting myself into the worlds of writing and editing, I'm feeling completely unprepared and quite nervous. In a few months, the safety net for school will be ripped from underneath us; we'll be flying and/or crashing on our own.

Therefore, these next few months are crucial. We need to prepare ourselves for the "real world". This professional readiness class is supposed to be covering all our concerns. But instead, our classmates usually get stuck in some useless vortex of obsession. Today, they got fixated on furniture. And from what I heard, I've realized that I'm completely unprepared.

My desk is all wrong. It doesn't instill in me feelings of professionalism or dread. It's just there. Sometimes I sit at it. Sometimes I use it to store books. But it doesn't do anyting for me. Maybe I have the wrong kind? Perhaps I should take a photo and bring it to class. Maybe it's the reason why I sometimes have writer's blocks.

Or it could be the lamp. It's totally non-regulation. It was a gift, and therefore it must have bad writing karma. Perhaps it's in the wrong spot. Should I even bring up the topic of feng shui?

And I didn't even ask anyone if I could buy a file cabinet. It never occured to me that I could buy the wrong one and that all my writing efforts would be totally useless. Maybe it's totally negating all the info I store in there. Maybe it has a portal which sends all my ideas to the same place where the missing socks go.

I know that my chair is all wrong. My back tells me that it is. Maybe I'm using the wrong pencils and pens? Maybe they're blocking all my cleverness. Maybe it's the fact that I recycle paper (ie write on the blank side); this might cause confusion.

Then again, there is a saying about people blaming the tools instead of their skills. It's kind of famous, and kind of cliched, but maybe for a good reason. It doesn't matter what you use to write, people. What matters is that you write.

So quit your whining.