In 2008, the hubby and I moved to Greenville, NC so I could attend graduate school. I was very excited. Their metals area was huge (four faculty members!) and two of the professors were veritable legends in the field--indeed, I was quite the fan of one of them. It was a small town and I knew there would be some adjusting, since it was my first time away from home, but I was confident I could deal with anything they could throw at me.
I was wrong.
Now, I know one of my mistakes was not visiting the area first, but, in my defense, the crap that was wrong with the place is not stuff I'd've noticed in the couple of days I could've spent there. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, you know. If I had visited, my conclusion would've been, "Well, it's not great, but I can live here for a couple of years."
There were two major cultural issues--the first was with the university, the second was dealing with people outside of the school. Unlike many of my classmates, my husband was NOT an artist or a student, so he was stuck trying to find work and make friends with the townies. Not an enviable task. That, combined with my well rounded nature and interest in more than just art meant that I got to experience both the University and Greenville in all their glory.
My undergraduate experience had been, I was to find out, quite atypical for art school. My professors were kind, enthusiastic and really cared about their students. They encouraged everyone to do their best and it was an incredibly positive experience. I left there with a wide variety of skills, competence, and confidence in my work. I look back at that time in my life very fondly.
Graduate school, on the other hand, looked more like this:
Well, minus the serial killer, although there was a fatal shooting about a block away from the art building my first summer there.
My work was repeatedly looked down on, while the work of my contemporaries--much of which was utter and hideous drivel--was highly praised. My careful attention to detail was compared to work which would have been unacceptable in my undergraduate program. For the first semester, I was stuck in the undergraduate studio with one other grad student (who I suspect they only put in there so it wouldn't look like they were singling me out). This room was filthy, poorly lit, and filled with highly annoying artists who would blare their godawful music throughout the shared space. To give you an idea of the filth level, my fellow grad student (who became the dear friend whose wedding I went back for) wound up having to go to the doctor multiple times because the vent over our head was spewing black particulate matter over our heads. By the second semester, it was decided that I needed to "remediate" and I was made to attend undergraduate classes because my skills weren't up to snuff (in spite of the fact that they were better than at least one fellow grad student who would be graduating that year). The grad room was moved so as to accommodate more students after my first semester, and I basically had to sneak in and set up my space over night in order to avoid being stuck in the undergrad room again. While better lit, the new room still had people blaring what I like to refer to as "music to kill yourself to" and the fellow in the space next to me working in wood and perpetually spewed dust and crap over into my space. I actually had to rearrange my stuff so things didn't get ruined (I was also taking textiles classes for my electives). I was seeing campus counseling services and on medication by October 2008. I had had some previous trouble with depression before moving, but things reached critical mass in NC. With few friends, a negative and unhealthy working environment, chronic sleep deprivation (what kind of art school starts classes at eight in the morning?), and almost perpetual emotional abuse, it was really inevitable, I suppose. I haven't even mentioned one of the other professors in the department, who I can sum up with one picture:
Anyway, by February, not only was I halfway off my rocker, my mother in law was also killed in a car accident. By the end of March, my medication abruptly stopped working and the hubby found me rocking on the bathroom floor terrified to move because there were razors under the sink and if I moved I might get one and do something I would regret. This was followed by a five day stay in the psych ward at Pitt Community Hospital (did I mention that Greenville, NC is located in Pitt County? How appropriate) and there were multiple times through my time in NC that the hubby, God bless him, had to confiscate my sharp and pointy things. Pointy things at the studio were passed on to my one friend in the department.
At this point, I was really questioning whether or not I wanted to stay at all, but wanted to make the decision with a clearer head--obviously, I wasn't thinking straight.
By the end of my second semester, I wound up transferring downstairs to the textiles department. It was my choice, but I was strongly encouraged to make the move by the head of the metals department, mostly because she didn't want me in her department and I was too good to flunk out (obviously not the way she put it, but it was easy to tell). The textiles area was very welcoming (one of the girls actually wrote out "welcome!" in yarn in my new workspace) and the other students were much more open and friendly, in spite of my lack of experience in the field. The professors were also much better to work with. Still, the damage had already been done, and by the end of my third semester I had decided to leave. Unfortunately, the lease on our apartment wasn't up until July, so I remained in school so we could get loan money to pay the bills.
I would also like it noted that the entire time I was there, I was continually left out of graduate student activities and events. I wasn't able to get an assistantship my first year because I didn't even know who to ask to get one until after the deadline passed. The only way I found out about meetings or requirements was because one of the few friends I had mentioned it in passing. Periodically, the graduate coordinator would require something from us--the only time I found out was when I received a nasty gram demanding to know why it hadn't been done. I always responded with, "This is the first I've heard of it. Maybe you should put me on your mailing list." This lasted the entire time I was there. I actually got one such message demanding a list of my accomplishments for the year or I wouldn't be able to register for classes in the spring--after I had told the guy in person that I was leaving.
I left graduate school with no confidence in my work, massive emotional scars, and a boiling pit of rage deep inside.
And that's the university, which was better than town.
Greenville, NC is not the place they're talking about when you hear about how great Greenville is. It is a poverty stricken, racist, rude, and unthinkably ignorant ghetto. It is the only place I have ever been where I was looked down on by clerks because of the color of my skin, and the only place I have ever seen a white man motion with his head for a black woman to get out of his way and the woman actually do it, without going off on his ass. If I was out with the husband or he was out alone, panhandlers would ask us for money. The campus McDonald's actually had a regular "bum" who would come up to you and mumble unintelligibly asking for money. I once saw him sitting in his car (which was nicer than mine at the time) talking on his cell phone. There were shootings on a regular basis, there actually was a black part of town and people were just plain creepy. You'd start talking with them, and then realize halfway through the conversation they were talking about something completely different. For example, one night I was buying fabric for class at Walmart and got talking with the clerk about the weirdos they get in there. I was referring to the roving groups of thugs who looked like they were looking for someone to mug or rape (or both). She was talking about the flaming gay couple walking around having fun. Needless to say, I was rather shocked, and got my shit and got out pretty quick. I found the couple comforting, like a taste of home. Because it was a small town, shopping options were very limited. Service was terrible. We once had to wait 45 minutes to get a carry out order at Captain D's, and when my husband was waiting for them to correct it, they told him to get out of the way. One of our very few townie friends told us about one of the barbecue restaurants that had two entrances, leftover from when it was segregated. People still used the entrances as designed.
And then factor in the road "system." See, in North Carolina, roads are laid out as inconveniently as possible. For example, it took at least twenty minutes to get anywhere in Greenville. Not unreasonable, you might think. Wikipedia has Greenville's population at around 84,000. My hometown has a population of almost 296,000, and you can get most places in about twenty minutes. Greenville has two railroad lines. So does my hometown. You can't get anywhere in Greenville without crossing at least of of these lines, both of which have a lot of rail traffic. I can think of one street that I use with any frequency that you ever actually have to stop for a train at here at home. Also, the train doesn't stop while crossing the road, back up, and then repeat that four or five times. Greenville is the only place I know of where you can drive a couple miles in the direction the train is going--lots of traffic, btw--and cross the tracks again on another road before the train gets there. Roads there end, and then start back up a block later. There was actually one road that you could get on, expecting it to join up later with another road of the same name, and it dead ended about ten feet from the other one. And this whole road thing is a statewide thing. We'd make day trips to Raleigh, and there were some places that you could only get to by making u-turns. Mapquest, would actually say, make a u-turn. We couldn't go anywhere without getting lost. You'd think you were going north when you were really going south, you'd be driving down one road and suddenly find yourself on another, blocks away from where you were supposed to be--without turning.
On the rare occasion things weren't going wrong and you actually started to think, well, maybe things will be okay, something would always come up and completely blindside you.
Now, I will admit that not everyone has experiences like this in the state, and that not everyone I met was a terrible person, or a really terrible artist. I'll also admit, that some portions of the state are better than others. But when that much shit goes wrong in that short of a time span, it is hard not to be biased. And honestly, most of the experiences I have had in North Carolina have been less than pleasant, even those unrelated to this one. This isn't even everything that happened there, just the high points (or low points, if you will). If you think I'm exaggerating or overreacting, please, talk to my husband. He'll tell you I'm downplaying it because I've blocked most of the experience. I'd also like to point out that I can't go to the state now without having at least one panic attack, usually when I've stopped driving and have actually thought about where I am. I did make a couple a very good friends while I was there, and I learned a lot about myself, but it was, without a doubt, the worst two years of my life, and will probably remain so. I will not return willingly to Greenville (the wedding I went back for was in the western part of the state) and while I would feel sad if the few friends who are still there died or were injured, I would not shed a tear if a hurricane wiped the place off the map.
So yeah, that's why I hate North Carolina, and why I'd like to see half of it drop into the sea.
NEXT TIME: Domestic Bliss! Pictures of the house! Narnia!
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