This is a major Modernist work by Pablo Picasso, "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon." It's pretty important because it shows the restructuring of women, twisted faces and contorted positions, wholly upending nude portraiture, which is emblematic of the Modernist movement. This picture is here because it generally represents how Courtney Fenner feels most of the time because Courtney Fenner is broke. Here's why.
She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2003 with a truckload of credit card debt, as most college students do, and a degree in something completely unteachable: Women's Studies. So, she went back to her old high school and begged the very kind and patient principal to give her a job. He said yes, and she worked there for a year mentoring students, teaching creative writing, monitoring study hall, and covering classes for teachers who had sudden "emergencies" and were gone for the remainder of the school day. Though this was the best first job ever, she was practically paid in peanut shells.
Somewhere in the midst of teaching creative writing to kids after school twice a month (activities included going outside to scream obsccenities into the wind then writing a poem about it), she got to thinking, "I'd like to be entirely self-indulgent and sit around for a few years writing." So, she decided to go to graduate school for her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. While the faculty was fantastic, the school was cool (Go Rams!), and she was incredibly honored to teach college composition to disenchanted college freshmen who thought the world owed them something, like many a graduate assistant in the nation's higher education field, she made no money.
Aching to go somewhere where she could experiment in being even poorer (because, let's be honest, writers love writing about dwelling in the depths of poverty for their art), she decided to move to New York City to become a public school teacher. She was selected to be a New York City Teaching Fellow, teaching English to ninth graders in Brooklyn. And while teaching, this lovely program also pays for her to obtain (yes, another) Master's Degree in English Education from Brooklyn College. Yes, this is a sweet deal and she's making more money than she has at any other period in her life, but it has been sadly eaten up by tragic rent costs, soaring food prices, and the ever demonic MTA subway cards. While this may sound INSANE, it's the best choice she has ever made because getting 14-year old kids to honestly and intelligently discuss the ills of the foster care system, immigration, the 2008 election, drug-addled parents, and what they want to be when they grow up makes her feel like a gabillionaire...
...even if still a bit like one of those uncomfortable Modern women pictured above.