Category: …and everything else

I’m sitting in the middle of a large pile of bedding, things that have been stripped from my bed as I take advantage of the early morning and actually being awake to my third – yes third – load of laundry in less than 24 hours. The idea of clean towels and sheets is enough to make me purr. Which might be an odd thing to mention on an academic journal, but hey…

No, I mention it because I feel like it means a bit of balance is swinging back into my life. After finishing my course outline last week, I sort of melted a bit and needed to step away from academia. The outline, potluck, and a few other things worked against me to the point that I was really feeling violent, for lack of a better word. A weekend of not doing much other than work and a Packers game was what I needed to get back in the headspace of loving what I do. Monday, while starting off badly, ended most fabulously: grades received for the practicum I took, another professor offering to write me a letter of recommendation without my first asking, funding for my trip from a surprise source, hearing about the impact I’ve had on yet another person just through casual conversation, finding out I’m apparently the go-to person for network theory and affect (I am? Oh shit…), getting my travel funding requests in, getting my travel arrangements lined up – it was like that mini-break was all I needed for all the chips to fall into place.

Of course, since it all happened on a Monday, I’m feeling very ambivelent about the rest of the week – it might not bode so well for me.

In less general and more academic terms, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about affect, a la Massumi, while simultaneously rereading Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern, one of my favourite books of theory. It’s been a while since I’ve picked it up, and in that while my interest in time has developed; imagine my surprise to see just how much time informs his notions of networks and modern critical theory, and the bifurcation between the two. (There’s a very pretty graph, but alas, it’s a graph.) I really am going to need to buckle down, soon, and read Deleuze’s Cinema One; Phillip has suggested that I read Spinoza’s Ethics first, which is just a good idea in several regards, so I’m actually bringing that with me today.

Affect and time. Integrating them is going to be interesting, because in many ways affect temporarily displaces you from time – similar to Greenblatt’s wonder, it is that which occurs before you categorize it as occuring. Time is – well, huh. Time is your ever-moving through the present, with potentiality in front of you and a constantly shifting understanding of what happened prior behind you. Is time, in part, a construct to assist in the filtering and understanding of affect? That’s probably a reach, but it’s worth knocking around. (Actually, what would be worth knocking around is the idea of time in general with Alan, but I’ve to find an opportunity where he wouldn’t mind discussing it. I should make that happen, though, since he’s one of the only other people I know of interested in time…)

I’ve not been writing too much in an academic vein lately, which I should really amend, but believe me, the thoughts are kicking around in my head, violently trying to fly out.

CHID potluck last night – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people smooshed into one area. But it was fun, and a lot of “that’s inappropriate behaviour for a PF and student!” commentary; oh, if they only knew.

I think one of the things I value about CHID the most is the closeness, not just mentally and emotionally, but physically. You are almost always guaranteed at least one hug while in the CHID office, and often many. Last night, it was like swimming through arms; everywhere you turned, someone was touching, holding, hugging. Several times over the course of the night, I had people sitting on my lap, across my lap, leaning against me. I spent equal time draped over other people. Nothing overtly sexual, just comfort and contact.

You don’t realize how much you value that, I think, until you’re not around it for a while – then you realize it’s been a while since you’ve touched someone.

Which is not to say the evening was sunshine and roses. Some of the awkward dynamics of 390 reared their ugly head last night, and in front of enough witnesses that it’s going to make the rest of the quarter interesting. I really need to recenter myself on at least one issue; it’ll probably involve being more aggressive than I normally am, but such is life, eh? (And yes, Virginia, there is such a thing are more aggressive…)

Stayed in the UDist again last night (two nights in a row), just to make sure a good friend got herself to bed okay. There’s a lot knocking around my head right now, about roll and authority and power and dynamics, friendships and being a student and a lot of things that I’ve honestly never experienced before, leaving high school early and having that whole non-traditional student thing going.

I’m spending so much time with people this quarter – normally it’s me and my computer and contact with people that way. Not so this quarter; I’m often away from the computer for a day or more at a time. And the social contact is with a lot of people new in my life; yet, I know things about them and they about me that suggest a much longer connection. (Hell, they know things about me some of my closest friends don’t.) Maybe some of it goes back to that CHID blurring of lines and boundaries, and that blur happens to physical as well as emotional.

I don’t know. I’m not making sense, and I realize that. Guess it’s still knocking around in my head, and I’m not terribly sure what to do with it or where to go, yet. But I suspect that it, whatever it is, is part of that nerve and awkwardness and irritation. I need to get that sorted out, at least for me, by Monday.

I took a mental health day today. I realized when I woke up that a lot of the angst and frustration I carried home and to bed last night had stayed with me. The death of my beloved iPod* sort of sealed the deal for me, and I stayed at home and in bed most of the day. I did absolutely nothing of value – I read web comics, surfed the ‘net, poked around things I’ve been meaning to look into, read some of a novel I had to put down at the beginning of the quarter, cuddled my cats. I didn’t even sign on to any ‘net chat clients. Just me, my cats, and a cocoon.

The one thing I did do is contact Kanna to tell her I’d be a little longer in turning in the syllabus and course outline I’ve been working on, and why. I sort of jokingly commented that it was to prevent the ripping off of pretty and smart heads, which wouldn’t be nearly so pretty or smart if decapitated from their bodies. Because Kanna is one of the most awesome people I know, we actually started talking about it, and I was able to really pin down just what’s been bothering me.

I put a lot into PFing. I wouldn’t say that I take my roll as any sort of instructor seriously (because, come on, when you get down to it, I’m just being punished for my own contempt for authority), but I do take my roll as someone to be there and help very seriously. But I am more than that roll (regardless of if it’s seen as PF, instructor, sympathetic ear) – I have interests, passions, things I like to talk about outside of 390 papers and classroom power dynamics. I’m getting kind of tired of my free time, downtime, when I should be relaxing and having fun with colleagues, turned into perpetual office hours.

I will be the first to admit that when a student tells me how much they appreciate whatever it is I’ve done, I will glow for hours, if not days. It completely and utterly motivates me, and is certainly part of the reason I walk this path. But, if someone is indifferent, or even hostile, I don’t much care. Sure, I stop and wonder and try to figure it out, but it’s not like I’m going to sit in the corner with a bottle of whiskey and a razor. What gets under my skin, what really, really irritates me, are the people who don’t see me as anything other than a perpetual resource. Who ask “why? We can talk about it right now” when I suggest meeting up some time to talk about 390, rather than doing it at happy hour/on my lunch break/while I’m trying to do other homework. People who just seem to demand and demand, without that corresponding gratitude or thanks.

As Kanna so succinctly put it, I am more than my job.

I’m still not entirely certain how to set up the boundary so that this is clear. I don’t want to be a 9-5 teacher, but I do want my rest and relaxation with friends, as well. No, no. I do know how to set up that boundary. I simply need to say what I just did here – I need to simply, clearly explain (with perhaps a bit less “YOU SUCK GAH GAH” thrown in) what I just said: that I am more than 390PF, and that while I’d be more than happy to sit down and discuss whatever, I’d like to have it scheduled so that I can spend the current moment unwinding with everyone else.

Of course, the amusing thing is that I realize I am very guilty of being on the other side of this line. Another lesson very, very painfully learned.

*Apple gave me a new iPod, so all is well. I’m just having to recreate all my custom playlists, which is a pain in the ass. And there’s still this weird sense of loss – that iPod is not Állati Szén. Állati Szén is dead, as dead as a piece of machinery gets; like most Mac users, I personalize and get rather attached to my hardware. Szenvedély, the new iPod, is very nice and I’m certain will make me very happy, but it’s still a strange sort of loss.

I feel it ever so important to clarify that I did not take the day off school/work in order to participate in today’s protest. I completely and utterly forgot about it until stepping into Bauhaus for coffee, and honestly might have gone to campus had I realized there might be the slightest chance of being associated with it.

It’s not that I have a problem with people protesting, I just think it’s inane and pointless, and it’s not the sort of thing I want to be associated with. Meh.