Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: …and everything else

Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.

Twitch

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

A bad mood snuck up on me Monday afternoon. I shook it off as low blood sugar, got some food, and seemed to be okay. It crashed down on me again yesterday, right after lunch. Okay, not a blood sugar issue.

A person issue.

Great.

I’ve lost a bit of my zen calm, it appears, and have let someone’s constant challenging of authority get under my skin. And it’s not that I even see myself as an authority – not even when I’m standing up lecturing about something. If I did see myself in such a light, you can sure as hell bet I wouldn’t 1) go out drinking til who knows when with students in my classroom, 2) be willing to sit down and talk with any students at any point about anything or 3) make jokes and other comments on papers while grading them.

I have to keep reminding myself that the other person may have been having a bad week. Perhaps two sour moods just hit and mixed badly. Or hell, maybe they really do have an issue with me – whatever. I need to not take it personally…

…except that’s really the problem with the pedagogical (if you will) method that I inhabit. This is personal for me. I pour everything into what I do, and to have that rejected sucks. More than that, it hurts. I just want the best for the folks I happen to get into student/instructor relationship with. Hell, I tend to be possessive and watchful of them long beyond when I should be (failing of mine, I admit).

I just don’t want what feels like the constant battle, and feel like it’s really stupid for it to even be there. And so I indulge in petty fantasies of handing back a paper with little to no markings on it, of removing myself from conversational opportunities, and withdrawing and becoming distant. I have too much a sense of responsibility to do the first, but I suspect the latter two will indeed happen in outside-my-classroom spaces. If I don’t want to get engaged in that sort of thing, I need to remove myself from the potential.

And if you think you’re detecting a note of sour grapes, yes, you are. I don’t want to remove myself from conversation with a dynamic, interesting person. Of course, the other option would be the mature route – the one that sits down and says “what the fuck is up with you?” and goes from there. Maybe when I regain a bit of center and balance, I’ll even take it. Right now, it’s more fun to fantasize about being six.

SCCUR

...and everything else

Dear Kelly:

Congratulations! Your presentation and abstract entitled “Desire, Affect and Time: Constructing the Appeal of Reality Television” has been accepted for the 2005 Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) to be held , on the UC Riverside campus!

Riverside, here I come!

Hell Days

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!

Wednesday was Not Good. No motivation, no desire, a really bad conversation with a former instructor – and then Kanna and Phillip pulled me right out of it (they’re so my shining knights). From there, Craig and I went to see Mirrormask, which I have decided was a very simple story highlighted by sharp writing, and a beautifully magical set. I came home, curled up with some Foucault and Pratt, and was in bed at a decent hour.

This morning, I feel relaxed and energetic. I’m confident about my 390 small group for the first time this quarter. I’ve found my personal hook into the material. While this week is on Orientalism, John asked that we focus today on the power/knowledge discourse that Said borrows from Foucault. Adam is going to talk about the EU and Turkey, Matt wants to talk about knowing literary texts, and me? I am going to talk about the power dynamics of a classroom, what it means to have knowledge, and things like that. Exactly what’s been on my mind this quarter, and off/on since I started this whole pseudo-teaching thing. I need to pull some quotes from Said and Foucault and make photo copies of the Pratt, in case anyone wants the article, but I’m feeling very confident for today. I have a small activity planned and everything.

It feels nice to have found my legs.

Boots

...and everything else, life and living

It’s odd, memory triggers. I was sifting through LJ, looking at friends posts, when a picture of Diamanda Galas brought back a flood of memories. All for the glint of metal, the toe-guard on a pair of boots.

The abusive ex bought me cowboy boots one year. The year I’d been wanting boots to replace my black, soft leather, pirate/elf-style boots. The ones I’d worn into the ground, and have in some way or another been looking for ever since. He didn’t want me to have that style of boot, though – he thought I should wear cowboy boots. So he bought me very expensive, soft black leather cowboy boots, embroidered from top to bottom in black stitches.

I hated them. But I wasn’t allowed to have that sort of opinion then. It would have been good for a confrontation, for yelling, threats. So instead I tried them on (they fit), and mouthed how nice they were… and that I wouldn’t want to scuff them up, they were so nice. So I needed to get some silver toe-guards for them. And because things were the way they were, with me not having money of my own, the toe-guards were never bought and never put on. But off and on for the next few years, he would drag out why I wasn’t wearing the boots I must not love him because I wasn’t wearing them, and I would point out that I’d happily wear them as soon as we could afford custom work to have toe-guards installed, and that particular game would stay stalled in neutral.

I left the boots behind when I left. To this day, I look for soft leather pirate boots, and walk immediately by the cowboys.

Progress

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 390 - PF, The Revenge!, CHID 491

I’ve discovered the oddest thing – if I read something complex aloud, I’ll have a much better chance of understanding it. I think it has to do with levels of engagement; I have to put more of myself into something if I’m reading it as well as listening to myself, and it activates different areas of the brain. It makes sense, since I’ve always learned well via lecture.

The end result of that discovery is that I was able to engage with the intimidating paper on a level that I’m happy with; I found structural issues to comment on, and did so in a manner that doesn’t have me looking like a simpleton. But man, after looking through all the papers I’ve graded this week, lemme just reinforce what a good thing it is I don’t use red ink. (Back when I was first starting this whole teaching venture, a good friend’s mother gave me one piece of advice that she felt was invaluable: knowing how chatty I am in commentary, do not under any circumstances grade in red ink. The papers would be handed back looking like they’re dripping blood, and that’s just not friendly. So now, people get grapes back…)

Beyond getting all my papers graded, I refreshed on the reading (although not as well as I would have liked; Taylor is complicated, and few people seemed to understand him – presenting myself in a light of having fully understood feels like cheating), and got “omgrough” draft of my grant application finished. I’m already thinking about how to change it, so it will be a long day of editing in gap times. I’m still not certain I can actually finish it in time for the deadline, but I’m going to try – if nothing else for the practice. There’s another round of funding in January if I really blow it this time, so it’s not a dreadful level of pressure (although getting funded now would certainly be better than then). I mostly just want to perform well so that I can get a “good” out of Phillip – the things I’ll push myself to do (like only getting 3 hours of sleep) for a little ego stroking.

At least I know what motivates me.