Kafka-esque

Has anyone else read The Castle by Kafka? It was an unfinished novel, which, if you've read it,  you know how ironic and true the incompleteness is in itself.  There was no way to end that book.  That was the whole point, the endless frustration of modern life and bureaucracy, the meaninglessness of ambition which will never be fulfilled. . . how the pointless striving can steal the life that you already have.  Because, if all you care about is your frustrated and ultimately meaningless goal, wanting what you don't have, then you lose the joy you could have today with the gifts you do have.  Existentialism in it's naked brutality.  And truth. 

I am very frustrated today with the maze of complications in life. I'm having problems with HR at my new college, so, I have not been paid and will not get paid for some time. It's a comedy of errors. I told my department chair what was happening and he said it was Kafka-esque. I agree.

HR needs proof of my degree to officially hire me. I never got my Masters diploma because they mailed it to the wrong address. I have tried several times over the years to get my diploma, but they insist I pay for it because it's a duplicate. Out of principle and poverty I refuse to pay for a piece of paper I already paid for with thousands of dollars of tuition. I tried again to get a copy, but they will not send it unless I pay them.

Alternatively, I can show my transcripts to HR, but they must be original. I had an original sitting on my desk for 7 months.  Some time this summer I put it away.  Which means, it is gone forever.  I looked in every place it should be and it's not there.  Now I have to pay for another original.  Again, because of  poverty and the fact that I should already have a copy in my possession, I refused to pay for it. Instead, I would keep looking for the one that should be here. Meanwhile, 2 weeks later, I am not getting paid.

Realizing I can not pay my rent on time again this month, I gave in. I made several phone calls and finally talked someone into sending me a transcript for free. I told him I wasn't getting paid until I got my transcripts and I couldn't pay for my transcripts because I wasn't getting paid and he said he'd send me a free one. It arrived today. Sigh, that's one hurdle.

I called my department to see if they got my timesheets because they are due on Mondays. Turns out, I filled them out incorrectly and need to go to the office to do them again. Since I also have to take HR my transcripts, I called them to make sure they'd be there too. (They don't do paperwork on Fridays, which I found out the hard way.) Until I take care of HR, I won't get paid anyway. The commute costs $10 so I don't want to make 2 trips, it can also take an hour each way.  Good thing I called, the paperwork lady wasn't there today. So there was no point in going in today. Sigh.

I am extremely grateful to have my job. I don't mind the change in status. But the fact is, I don't even have shared office space or a key to the department office or a mailbox. I am on the bottom of the seniority pile when I used to be on the top.  And, as of yet, I don't have an email account and can't log in to the computer equipment.

So a student complained to the chair that he couldn't get in touch with me. Because I don't have a school email account and have not been able to get into the Blackboard website, because of my HR problems. I explained myself, but I'm already starting off badly.  I swore I wouldn't do that this time.

I am frustrated.

It is a maze of corridors and offices and paperwork similar to Kafka's luckless hero as he suffered to get into the castle. I am impressed by the stupidity of it all. I am impressed with my incapacity to adapt myself to the stupidity. I am trying to detach myself so I don't go into a screaming fit and pound my head against the wall.  Because none of this really matters.  Until it does.  Like, if I got evicted for paying my rent late again, or when I got fired for turning in my grades late, etc.

I walk in this maze. Amazed.

Maybe I should take up drinking. As long as you didn't get drunk, you could continue walking in the maze regardless of the the frustrations and maybe get somewhere. Or maybe not. There really isn't a 'somewhere' to get to, is there? Because there is always another hallway. And the Word of Wisdom.5

That was Kafka's --and the existentialists'--conclusion, if you could get them to admit there is a conclusion. Life is the maze. There is no arrival. There is no end save death. None of this silliness matters. The trick is to embrace the maze without giving up on your life. Enjoy the struggle but don't take it too seriously. 

Or, you can turn to drink or religion.

. . . to be continued

Last Day of Class

Last night I taught my last classes at the college that asked me to leave. It was heartbreaking, and also nice. Quite a few students wanted to know what I else I would be teaching, they wanted to take more classes from me. In the hallway, I ran into a student from the year before. She told me how much she loved my class, it was her favorite, and she learned a lot. After the last section of the night, some students stayed around to chat. They talked about how the class had affected them since the beginning of the semester. How they had changed. Now they always ask questions and challenge people, they think more. One man said he couldn't stop using the word 'impiety', even while bowling.

That was awesome. I couldn't help smiling. I hadn't told them I was leaving. Yet, they indirectly thanked me for doing my job. They told me they had learned something and were better for it. My work had mattered. This was their parting gift to me, they may as well have wrapped it up in a bow.

I've learned to love these students. They're tough city kids, fun and exciting. They've lived hard lives, have opinions, and have their own wisdom. But they are kids. If you show any weakness they eat you alive. They almost chewed me to oblivion during the first two years. But then I learned to teach them. I developed my professor schtick, tailored specifically for them. It took a few years. At first, I tried being myself, nice, but it didn't work, I couldn't control the classroom. They didn't respect the pretty young girl standing up front, who supposedly had authority over them. They could smell my fear too, which meant I had already lost the game. ( I was also losing my mind, that didn't help much.)

Next, I tried to be strict and mean, scare them into compliance. Those were the worst semesters of my life. I had students get into power struggles with me, and I usually lost. They didn't fear me, they hated me. Then what could I do? I relaxed and gave up on being the disciplinarian. So my vulnerable, confused, kind-hearted side that I had tried to hide began to show. The befuddled kindly professor worked better. I didn't get hostility anymore. But about a third of the students didn't respond, they ignored me. I was criticized for being boring. Me?! Then, a few years ago, somehow, accidentally, well, I was probably manic and couldn't help it, I figured out what worked.

I charmed them. I did my first date routine on the first day of class and thereafter, mixed in with some befuddled kindly professor. I smiled, made them laugh, gave them attention, listened and appeared slightly vulnerable. I did that by expressing confusion over dates and times, confessing that I didn't know how to work the copy machine with the security code. That's why I didn't have their syllabus ready. The befuddled bit wasn't acting, but the trick was to stop hiding it, let them see my confusion. Before I just got frustrated with myself and that's what showed. And I still don't know how to use the copy machine with the stupid security code.

It worked. Like magic, the charming and befuddled professor JL got the students to behave. Finally, my 18 years of dating experience was good for something. I could make them like me. I could make them want to listen and be nice to me. Some even got a little protective of me during the semester. I'd use that on the disruptive bad seeds who didn't respond to anything but peer-pressure. When they wouldn't stop talking, I'd go silent and make a face, sad, as if they had hurt my feelings. As the other students noticed, they would hush each other and look ashamed. Awesome.

This routine doesn't work as well at other colleges, with different students. I have to create a new character and it's very frustrating. Suburban kids are not as much fun and it's not as rewarding to watch them learn to understand. But there are many other schools in the city. I hope the department chair will speak well of me if anyone calls for a recommendation. There's really no telling. I haven't sent the apology letter to him yet. I've had it ready for a week. It goes out tomorrow.

We still have finals, two more weeks of writing exams and grading, two weeks of unpaid torture.

I didn't cry during class, but I shed some tears as I walked away to the train. I never realized how much this job meant to me. That's one good thing. I'm waiting for the next.

The Anger

It's 3 am. I haven't been sleeping. Today was hard. I've been angry this week, very angry.  I discovered a new vein on the side of my forehead. Tuesday, at work in the bathroom mirror, I could see this vein bulging out thick with blood, it did that all night. No vein today, but every time I let the anger go, tears welled up. Mostly this happened between classes at work, so I had to suck it up and put the anger back on. Just being there makes me sad now. I had to shamefully sneak into the department to pick up my mail because I didn't want to run into anyone.

I'm angry at them. That they fired me without any warning. That I had to beg them to tell me the truth. That when they finally did, they made it personal.  They called me Indifferent after 7 years of giving blood, sweat and tears.  I'm angry at myself for doing the things they said I did.  For not having a clue. 

I'm angry that I trusted someone, decided to love him and the very next day he went away.  I'm angry that I essentially had the same relationship twice last year, with two different men. The same quick build-up of passion, overwhelming romance, he said 'I love you', acted like he loved me, said he wanted this to last permanently, made me believe him. Until I returned the feeling. Then I got dumped. Both times. Sudden. Cold. Awful. Goodbye.  Because they were afraid. Yet, they both still wanted to be "friends". They couldn't be without me. Nor could they, or would they, be with me.  So our relationships continued, as romantic "friends", without commitment or a future. And failed miserably, of course. 

And I wonder why I bother with men who don't want me. Why I put myself through that. Why I think I have to wait for them to change their minds, again. Waiting is crap. I deserve better. I want someone who wants to love me. Me. As I am. Now. Not begrudgingly because they can't help it. Not maybe sometime later. Not when they're un-broken, not when they're un-unemployed, not when they're done with the girl they've shacked up with, not when my meds start working, and not after they grow a pair. Have me now, or never.  

I'm angry that after days like today, when I spent all day grading papers then lectured four and a half  hours, wanting to cry throughout, and my last class acted like jerks, so I came home exhausted at 9 pm and I needed a comforting hug, that there was none. That I don't know what to do anymore.  All I can do at this point is put my life in the Lord's hands. Become more spiritual and obedient. Try to be better. Pray for the best. Keep myself from drowning.

I'm angry at the man who hurt me. That I keep remembering the wonderful things, the more wonderful, the more angry I get. Because without that anger, knowing he is gone from my life forever makes my chest feel swollen, so swollen it's hard to breathe and I start choking for air. When I see him in my mind, his cute nose under his beautiful green eyes, smiling so radiantly, like there's no where else in the world he'd rather be than with me, holding me, and I remember how it felt, sweet and warm and cozy and safe, my body humming happily with his, and how much I wished we never had to let go . . .  it's then, that I really, really, need to be angry.

Demons Haunting

My completely unexpected termination letter (AKA letter of non-reappointment), that came in the mail from the Provost's Office, signed by the Provost, said that there were no classes for me because of the new hires and changing student patterns. (?)  I knew this had to be b.s. because I have seniority over most of the adjuncts.  My friend told me to ask what the deal was.  I didn't want to, but I thought maybe the chair didn't know about it, and maybe he could do something.

Last week I emailed him, asking if there were some other reason for it, such as my grades being late in the fall.  He didn't respond. Yesterday, I emailed again. Could he tell me whether I'll be considered for classes that open up or, no?  I got a reply today. I  wish I had left it alone.

The email was well-crafted.  It was a reply to my first email, not the second.  The letter had been intended to insult me, to express their disgust with me.  He included several paragraphs outlining my problems. He summed it up with the term, "administrative annoyance".  Basically, I caused headaches and wasted time because my grades were late last semester,"not for the first time", and because I didn't respond to some of their emails.   This demonstrated a clear indifference to the job.  I'm not really sure how they got 5 paragraphs out of that, but they did.

Indifferent? If they only knew. I gave blood, sweat and tears, literally, to that damn college.  But I wasted all my time on teaching, my mistake.  I'm so indifferent that I get observation reports saying, "this is the most successful class I have ever seen at this college."  One semester, I got a thank you card from an entire class in a required freshman course!  My indifference must be the reason why 1/3 of the students in my current 300-level class are kids who've taken me before.  This was the one thing in my life I could still care about without feeling pain or regret.  Until now.  Thank you department chair and co-chair! I suspect this was mostly the woman's doing, she probably composed the letter, it had the stink of angry woman all over it.   Though she didn't have the balls to sign it, pun intended.  I don't think most men presume to know you're emotional state, such as indifference, based on your actions.  That seems like a female thing to do.

This is so bad for my 'waste of space' complex, I've been trying to dig myself out of it for weeks.  This one email has pushed me all the way back down to the bottom.  It hurts my  stomach.  The Cocoa Puffs and left-over Peeps may not have helped with that either.

I honestly did not think the late grades mattered much, I had no idea it caused  problems. No one ever replies to those emails, or is that just me? I  guess it was just me.  Maybe they could've said something before now to clue me in?  They had 7 years to let me know.  No one has ever said one word to me about anything.  If they had said something, I would have tried harder to be better.  But, no matter how hard I try, I'm a terrible employee. I'm late for everything, I can't do administrative anything to save my life, I get lost in deadlines, and when my anxiety is on I can't talk to anyone, or email or deal, forget about details and directions, they're impossible.

I'm not making excuses, I'd never hire myself, and it's unacceptable, but this is the result of my problems, the ADD and the mood disorder combined.  Despite my best efforts, I keep failing. (Although, if my doc hadn't been so stingy with the ritalin, I could have done better.)

I wish this was just one firing, but it's not.  It's a lifetime of firings. I am unemployable. I've been fired from every job I've ever had.  I was really proud of this one because I lasted 7 years!  I am very good at teaching.  I'm trying not to let despair eat me alive.  I'm working my mind as hard as I can to keep self-hatred from ballooning out of control.

I don't know where to go from here, what to do. What's going to happen to me. Except for this weeked. . . .

Beyond Normal

I know I promised new dating stories this week, but, a crisis hit. My sad adjuncting/graduate student career and the suffering which has ensued as a result of it, may have reached an end. An end for which I am not prepared.

This summer, I had no classes to teach. That means I had no income. That is a very bad thing. In late April, I began looking for summer work, temp jobs or a more stable full time job. I did nothing but look for a job this whole summer. Very, very depressing. Rejection after rejection.

Now, a 6 inch high pile of bills sits on my coffee table. I can't even make myself open the envelopes. My cell phone got shut off this week. (Actually a good thing because all 7 of my credit cards called me constantly wanting their money.) As a teacher in the state of NY, I do not qualify for unemployment benefits. So I used my credit cards for food, rent and transportation. Then my credit ran out. My pops spotted me some cash for rent.

Meanwhile, one company began interviewing me in June. They made me take an IQ and spelling test and then sent this whole packet to my house that took me 8 hours to complete. 5 interviews later, they offered me the Admin Assistant job on Monday. It pays 40k and has great benefits.

So? I have 5 classes scheduled to start in two weeks. My take home pay should be equivalent, minus benefits. I do not want to sit in a windowless crowded cubicle for 40 hours a week. I do not want to be a secretary. I have started to enjoy teaching again. Though my schedule this fall will be absolutely brutal.

I don't know what to do. I had a blessing last week from the missionaries. I've prayed and prayed. The day after they made their offer, when I told the recruiter I needed two days, he called me saying they needed to know by 5 pm. So I said I wasn't going to be pressured into it and if that's how they are going to be then my answer is 'No'. He flipped out. Many phone calls and emails later --he ruined my whole day, they decided to give me more time because they really want me. I even had to go cry in the bathroom after I turned the job down.

I heard myself turning down the solution to almost all of my problems. A steady paycheck, structure, schedule, easy job, easy commute, health insurance... The company is ridiculously employee-friendly, they told me I could take a few more weeks before I start to give the schools time to find a replacement for me. That made me think it would be foolishness to turn them down.

The choice is more complicated than it appears. They seem to be equally bad and equally good choices.

What scares me about the corporate job: That I won't be able to get back into academia when I want to, that I am throwing away my ticket to a full-time professor job in Brooklyn, that the cubicle will drive me crazy, that I will feel like crap about myself for 'selling out', that this may put me back on the road to crazy-town... having just emerged from my 3 year stint there, this thought terrifies me. Also, I am not good at being a secretary. I will have to get back on Ritalin to control my severe ADD. Feeling incompetent is very very bad for my emotional stability.

What upsets me about turning down the job: This means I am choosing to continue to suffer, struggling every month to find an affordable shrink, pay 3-400 each month for my meds, the breaks between semesters when I have no pay, having no guarantee of any employment the following semester or the amount of employment, the total exhaustion from teaching 5 classes at two campuses, the running around, the fact that I do not seem capable of doing my own research while I am teaching (because I want nothing to do with it by the time I get home), which means I will never finish my doctorate or get out of this hole.

Why do I want to teach? Because I am basically my own boss, no cubicle, no office building, no 40 hour week, sometimes I have fun, it is satisfying, and it is important work that matters. I know I can survive this without going crazy, because I survived last semester, although, I have more classes in the fall and will teach everyday instead of 3 days a week. This devil I know. I love having colleagues that I respect and enjoy talking to. My confidence is coming back and I'm starting to feel like a good teacher again.

Not knowing how long my emotional stability will last this time, makes the decision incredibly difficult. The corporate job is a gamble, which could pay off tremendously. The teaching job sucks, but I know I can handle it --(Maybe).

So, not much eating or sleeping. I have to make a decision ASAP. My head hurts.

It's all ok, right?

Grading got done yesterday. I spent 6 hours on one class. I still have another class and those grades were due today, but I'm not sweating it. The worst thing is going to be the backlash. 8 out of my 25 students that I submitted grades for, got a C- or below. Mostly because they didn't turn in their work. They're going to be angry and surprised because they didn't read their syllabi. Which means it is my fault they failed. I won't be reading my school email for awhile.

At least I got my phone back on finally. I'm a little less trashy now. Going away for the wedding will probably do me good. I haven't been out of here since Christmas.

I'm tired. Tension can wear a body out like that.My lifestyle is not conducive to my well-being. So what do I do now? Change I guess.

I missed the train

In more ways than one. First, traffic in Lincoln tunnel last week for some inexplicable reason was horrendously worse than usual. I think it was the weather. For some reason, when it is warm, more people like to go to Manhattan. I take a bus into the city to go to work. I give myself 40 minutes usually to get to Penn Station. Most days it only takes 20 minutes. Last Wednesday it took 45 minutes. I have to take a 9:24 LIRR train to get to my class by 11:20. If I miss that one, I will take the 9:31 to Babylon which isn't far enough. From there I have take a taxi that costs $50. I am loathe to pay that much since I am paid so little...but pay it I do.

Except last time I did not have $50 to take from the ATM so that wasn't an option. I decided to take the 10:24 train and called my colleague to have her give my class a writing assignment, that way I wouldn't have to cancel. We were in chapter 10 of the book so without even looking at it, I had them do the essay assignment in that chapter. It was due by the end of class, at which time I knew I'd be there. So, during lunch I read the essays. They were typically not good. The topic was, "Should public schools be allowed to post the 10 Commandments." They were to research the arguments then decide which they agreed with and write an argument.

One student got very creative in her example and in fact had one of the better essays. However, she slandered Mormons in the process. She said that if a Mormon child who had polygamous parents read the 10 Commandments at school he would realize his family did not follow them. His parents were adulterers for having multiple wives, so his feelings would be hurt and other children would make fun of him. In the margins I wrote that Mormons do follow the 10 Commandments and in fact, being married means that his parents are not adulterers.***

Then I had the students write critiques of their essays. On hers she wrote that she used an example that required interpretation and she should have interpreted it in her essay. That whether or not polygamers were adulterous was interpretive. She also said that her aunt attended 4 Mormon churches and they did not in fact follow the 10 Commandments. Groan. I didn't read this until after class when I checked their critiques. So I decided I should talk to her after the next class and clear up her misconceptions. That class was on Wednesdy.

But I wasn't really sure what to say to her. I had several variations. Mostly I wanted to tell her that she shouldn't assume that no one in the class was a Mormon, and that she should be more careful about repeating whatever, etc etc. I did not look forward to this chat. I knew it would make her uncomfortable and it would definitely make me uncomfortable. I felt I should tell her I was a practicing Mormon so whatever her aunt had told her, I could trump by actual expertise. Then class ended and I just didn't feel like stopping her, teaching that class is a real struggle, definite teeth-pulling involved. So I let her go.

An interesting coincidence happened the same day I gave them the essays. While I was reading them in fact. One of the other professors in my department told me his son was s teaching in Kansas and how terrible it was to have to be in 'tornado ally'. But that was certainly better than being in Utah with the Mormons. Then he went on a diatribe about what a ridiculous faith it is, how could anyone believe some guy saw God and etc etc....I actually interrupted him and told him I was Mormon. He was horribly embarrassed of course. I tried to assuage him by saying that I wasn't offended at all. I just wanted to stop him before I did get offended. In the past I wouldn't have said anything, just nodded uncomfortably. So I felt pleased with myself for this. Even though it caused him embarrassment and now he no longer respects my ability to reason, it was better than if he found out later on. So I kind of felt LDS-Defender exhausted and puzzled by the weird convergence.

Now it is probably too late. I'm kind of relieved. But I wonder if I have been disloyal to my church. Do I have a responsibility to clear up misconceptions whenever I come across them? I think I probably do. What do you think? What would you have done?

***For the record: Mormons do not practice polygamy and have not for over 100 years. Any member of the church caught in a polygamous marriage is excommunicated from the church and no longer a Mormon. There are some freaky groups calling themselves Mormon and practicing polygamy but they are not part of the real church.
**I happened to be more offended by the student's error in reasoning than I was in her factual errors. Which is why I didn't make a note of this on the paper.

Somewhere far away

This place is strange, where I've been since October. It terrifies my mother who made me promise to give her number to my girlfriend across the hall. My best friend worries, I suspect she barely recognizes me. I came to this place when I realized I needed to accept what was happening to me. I gave in to the demands of my body and mind to rest and retreat. I let go of all my striving and desires and ambitions. U stopped caring about everything and let myself be depressed. I accepted that I was failing and that it no longer mattered. A massive step.

As I sank into this odd state I became regaled with every memory of everything I've ever done wrong in my life. I felt shame and guilt for 4 months solid. With every waking breath I was forced to look at myself and all my flaws. Completely naked. It was brutal. Horrifying to see all your ugliness. Every dark corner of my soul aired itself out. This happened quite against my will and wishes, but I couldn't stop it. That's partly why I felt I was losing my mind.

In this basin of torment, wrestling with these things, every other part of myself seemed to have disappeared. No personality trait survived such a beating. That was in December when I felt utterly decimated, like a ghost. I could barely have conversations with people because my mind was exhausted and blank. Still I continued on with getting out of bed and showering and feeding myself and answering the phone when it rang. I didn't bother with anything more than that.

This place felt absolutely barren of anything but the torture. Except that the last few weeks I had glimpses of the fruit growing here because the guilt eased up tremendously. I couldn't grasp what it was nor did I believe these fruits were real. Tonight I can see that this dark place is an orchard. If I can get through this business, it will mean that I have healed the broken parts of my soul.

Stripped bare without my work and successes, I found that I had no foundation for my self-worth. It was all built on my achievements. The lack of any such thing has brought me down the last two years. But now that I don't care about those things anymore...now I can learn to love myself for real. Pure and unencumbered. To love myself the way God does. What my parents didn't give me, I may find on my own. How to do that is the question.

Because people still love me even like this, a useless human waste of space. How do they still love me? I'm trying to answer that question and trying to see in me what they see. This is hard. But if I manage it, I will be set for life in terms of survival skills. I already have more confidence now in some ways. I discovered that today when I overheard some older female professors talking about me. It didn't hurt me. I was disgusted but it didn't make me feel bad. In September, I got a B+ on a paper and it depressed me for weeks. With no solid core to my being I've been frail. That left me vulnerable, needy and insecure. That doomed all my romantic relationships to fail.

I'm also teaching very differently since the acceptance. I'm not afraid to let my personality show through. Which means that it's still there. And having a bad day at work doesn't hurt me now. I can shrug it off but before it would cut me down because it meant I wasn't good. Hitting the bottom has given me the freedom of the damned; with nothing to lose then nothing matters. Assume everyone hates you and that you are a complete failure and it gives you carte blanche. And then, you get to prove yourself wrong. Going naked through the world has shown me that I can teach, students like me well enough and colleagues respect me enough. But I don't even care. It doesn't reach me out here.

huh, I just recalled telling my therapist about a year ago that I wished I could go to emotional bootcamp where I could get everything readjusted to healthy behaviors. Where I could learn how to be a happy person and unlearn the unhappiness I inherited from my family. That may be too much to ask, but I am rebuilding with major improvements.

Be very careful what you wish for my friends. While I'm at it, never pray for humility either. That's a whole separate post about what came from the misbegotten prayer. It was answered.

This horror my life has become may be the most incredible gift ever. How often do we get a chance to rebuild ourselves from the ground up? Realizing this now takes my breath away. God must love me more than I can ever fathom.

midnight babbling

It's a sleepless night in the celibate house. Probably due to the bag of Doritos I had for dinner. Not my best choice. I had a bad day. Which is too bad because last week was all right. I'm on the 3rd round of antibiotics for my UTIwhatever problem. I had the ultrasound last Thursday but I won't get the results until March 11. That was the soonest appointment at the clinic. Meanwhile, the kidney stones or whatever get to ravage my tu track for 3 more weeks. And that appointment is only to hear the results, I'm sure I'll have to make another one to have something done about it. Hopefully I'll be sent somewhere else so I won't have to wait so long.

They offered me 3 classes to teach in the fall in Long Island. I had decided not to do it after the day when it took me 5 hours to get home because I missed the first train by 30 seconds and the nest train after it wasn't stopped long enough for me to get inside before it took off. But now I don't know. My pops thinks I should stay there because I'm building a career. But it's so obviously not a good idea. It costs me 160 a month to commute out there--not including the occasional $50 cab ride required on the days when I miss my train out of Penn Station. That's already happened once this semester. And this school pays only 2,300 per class instead of the 2.700 I can expect from schools in the city. Yes, you read that number correctly. 2,300 per section per semester. So teaching 3 classes in the fall would be a whopping 6,900.

This is all foolishness. I need friggin health insurance. I need to pay my credit cards. I'm fed up with the poverty. Of course, even if I got health insurance this summer then whatever is wrong with me now won't be covered as it will be a pre-existing condition. I'm just so over this nonsense.

On a sidenote, one kind soul in the D.C. area is making me mixed cds. Hooray! As I told him a new CD is like Christmas in the celibate house. Thank you again. I have to get up in 5 hours then drag myself 3 hours to boohooville. Yeah. The reasoning behind that choice seems very faraway and foreign to me now. Good night.

Turn around

What a horrible, whiny self-pitying post that last one is.

And then something random happened yesterday. It stopped again. No more of the spinning and incessant thoughts in my mind. The repetitive strain of thought "I'm sorry" went away. It accompanied some memory of something for which I felt ashamed. But I didn't feel bad yesterday for the first time in weeks and weeks. There have still been a few reguritated shameful memories popping up today and last night, but they don't make me feel bad. I even called my mother out of the blue to tell her about the good observation because i knew she'd liked to hear it. I haven't been calling anyone. Least of all her.

I'm afraid to hope that this will last a few weeks, enough to get me through the end of the semester without ruining everything. This looks like a bad month-good month pattern. If I get 4 good weeks from now I can still squeeze by without another incomplete. But I get ahead of myself. Musn't set myself up for disappointment again. Please, please, let this last a few weeks.

****
Another surprise I found this semester, I prefer my urban kids to the suburban. The suburbies bore me to tears. They have nothing to say. I can't even get them to talk about sex!! I have tried to get discussions going on sex just to wake them up and it falls dead. It is a Catholic school but they can't all be catholic. They also still seem to think they are in high school. A group of them clique together like they're the cool kids. I guess no one told them that no one cares anymore. They'll get quite a shock when they get real jobs.

One kid scares me. I think he may really be a psychopath. He is exactly what I imagined the Unabomber was like at his age. I could write a whole post about that kid so I'll end here. Except for this, yesterday he said he wanted to use his guns to kill the other student who also said he collects guns. The class laughed uproariously like it was a big joke. I'm just glad I live a safe 3 hour distance away from him.

Surrender

There is a dignity in surrender. Only a fool continues to throw herself against a wall that won't move. Only a fool refuses to quit the game she has lost.

After 13 months of battle, I gave in. I refuse to abuse myself by fighting any longer. I have nothing left to fight with. Every attempt to change, to stem the disorder led only to disappointment, frustration and seething anger. And the waiting. Waiting for the spiral upward to mental health. Nothing worked. Crushing disappointment followed disappointment. Until I couldn't take it anymore. The screaming rages, broken appliances, heaving sobs that resulted from my failed hopes and gargantuan efforts have drained me of the will to continue.

"I am broken." With that acceptance, I have found peace. Now I can relax. Now I can stop judging myself, stop scolding, stop failing. My friend said that I can't quit, that I might as well just shrivel up and die. But the fight was killing me--driving me to madness. It was the frustration that had me bawling in the doctor's bathroom stall for an hour, banging on the door. Surrender has already yielded benefits.

But first, I should explain what led me to this.
Several weeks ago, I was observed while teaching. I did well. Especially compared to last year's fiasco. I let myself hope a little bit. Then I got the report and she said nothing positive. I emailed the woman and asked if she could say something about my rapport with the students because my future employment may depend on her. She said she didn't want to because she couldn't say anything good about it. I made her nervous because I was so obviously nervous. And I seemed afraid of my students. She didn't think it was a serious problem but certainly there was nothing to praise.
I felt crushed. I had tried so hard to improve.

Then I finally went in to discuss the paper I spent 8 months writing. The prof hadn't submitted a grade so I figured it must be so bad he wanted me to rewrite it. That was not the case. He said it was a B+ paper. The arguments were weak and unconvincing. I think I'd have preferred to hear that it was so bad it was unacceptable--that way I could excuse it because of my mental state. Because only someone so irrational could have written something that bad. Nope. My work is mediocre.

That same week, my mind started up again. Over and over it kept saying "I'm sorry." Then filling my head with every memory of everything I have ever done wrong, or failed to do, or didn't do well enough. Then my whole body would flood with shame. Sometimes I found myself saying it out loud, "I'm sorry". That afternoon after it had been going on for a few days already, I had to sing as I walked uptown to campus to keep from saying it out loud. Did it get worse because I was upset over the paper? Probably, but there's no way to know.

Then my sister came to visit. I was actually excited. I look forward to one weekend that I wouldn't spend alone in my apartment. But then she went to Baltimore to see friends for the weekend. I asked her to stay with me. But she didn't. I understood why she went, I would leave myself too if I could. But it still hurt. Then I wasn't invited to my friends' house for Thanksgiving because one of them didn't like the way another friend behaved around me. Again, I completely understood that I had become a killjoy. But it still sucked.

The only way to stop the incessant shame and non-stop mental "I'm sorrys" was to distract myself: read of novel, watch 5 tv shows at once, or see a good movie.
All this occurred in October and brought me to the conclusion that I have failed. I am not good at this. I've lost. Nothing brings pleasure, the best I could hope for was a break from the pain. I have stuck with this grad school thing out of loyalty to the person I used to be, to the person who wanted this so badly. Until the end of October when I knew I was exhausted. No more.

Then a funny thing happened. Because I stopped trying to be a good teacher and stopped caring if I was doing well or not, something changed. My students began to react differently to me. They started to chat with me after class. The ones who always seemed diffident and repulsed by me suddenly seemed to let their barriers down. Then I was observed by someone at the Long Island college. I didn't really prepare and was rather sloppy with my lecture-- I even let class go early because I ran out of material.

But the prof said she was impressed. (!! what?!!) She thoroughly enjoyed class, blah blah .....huh. So the chair said I should start thinking about next fall, they wanted me to come back and one of the full timers would be retiring soon. huh. At one point in that conversation he said, "You have such a good rapport with the students you must really be enjoying yourself, right?" I balked. No. No, I'm not at all. I hate this. But that's not what one is supposed to say. Instead I said, "Yes, yes I am." and managed a feeble smile. Probably most unconvincing.

I spend all my time watching TV, commuting, teaching, and reading novels. And now I don't have to feel guilty about it. I don't have to fear failure because it's already happened. What's next for this weary traveler? Who cares? She may check herself into a hospital when the semester ends. Perhaps in surrender she will find rest.

The State of my Sickly career

Two solid weeks of depression, caused first by the news that I'm not good enough at my job and the people in charge know it, second from the news about kitty, kept me from doing my grading. It's shameful. I also ran out of ritalin on Monday and wasn't able to fill the scrip until Saturday evening. A brilliant gafaw on my part. Can you imagine trying to grade 75 essay-type exams sans the usual 100 mg of Ritty? I couldn't, so I didn't even try.

Grading involves: first deciphering the hand-writing, 2. deciphering bad English 3. Figuring out which questions they are attempting to answer 4. looking for ways to give them points when most exams are F-worthy, 5. Attempt to not get too depressed or angry at the horrible answers demonstrating most of them didn't read/listen/study AT ALL. 6. Hold back on the swearing and yelling--remember these are blue books and they can't hear me 7. Reading the same bad answers 70x in a row 8. keeping track of my point scale, 9. Adding up the points....double checking for number errors or grading errors.... These are not tasks that the seriously attentionally challenged can do without extreme effort and fortitude. Throw in depression without meds and there was no point in even attempting it. They're due on Tuesday.
***
I'm glad to be done with this semester. Most of my students were lovely people. It's terrible what a few bad attitudes can do. I should have better controlled the class and prevented the attitudinal badness. But I don't know how, the things I tried didn't work. So, I've accepted that I have limits. I can't teach in hostile environments. I don't have the personality or skills required to squelch the disrespect. I didn'tt even notice the disrespect until it got so bad that a student yelled at me for not accepting his late work--a policy I explained in the syllabus.

Though I do take issue with my boss's warning that the word 'boring' needs to stop coming up in my observation reports (2 out of 5). He told me to practice bad jokes for my lectures because we are entertainers as much as we are educators. Like I'm not already enough of a clown for devoting my life to this mess, and spending 10+ years in college racking up loans I'll never be able to pay? No, I have to pander to the students. Nevermind that the observer said my presentation of the material was very clear, well done and engaging, or that I was professional, organized and prepared. That doesn't matter as much as the fact that I don't have a good report with the students. [Except I did have a good report with my later section. I thought.] Sigh. One more semester of the teaching fellowship, then, hopefully, I can go elsewhere.

This episode devastated me. It sent me into 3 days of crying alone in the dark. It affected me so much because, even though I haven't written a paper in two years, I could still be ok since I devoted all my time to teaching and thought I was good. Student evaluations said things like: I was the best teacher they had at this school, I changed their minds about the subject, etc... But I let my mood disorders disrupt my performance.

I just discovered that being professional means that you don't let your problems affect your work. D'oh! Why hadn't I known that? Well--I did spend ages 14-22 fighting daily suicidal ideations and the years since keeping myself out of the deep dark bad place--the place where one is too depressed for suicide and one believes she deserves to suffer by staying alive. That, and working on this graduate degree stuff while holding various jobs. Even so, when I learn obvious things like this, I realize how much I didn't get from my parents. And how much growing up I have missed out on by having to fight the insanity. But it scares me. I'm 29 and only learning this now? What else am I missing?

I wonder if I should begin to look at a different career path. What? I don't know. There's a dignity in knowing when to quit, right? But I don't quit. I decided in the fall, when I seriously considered dropping this whole PhD nightmare, that I'd come too far and invested too much to stop. I resolved to finish it. So I will. Afterwards, I may end up going back to administrative assistant work--I'm sure I wouldn't be the only humanities PhD doing it.

I did ask for it
All of this happened after discovering I have a rather large arrogance problem. I came to this realization while trying to analyze the causes of my student-relations issues. This disgusts me. Instead of building self-confidence as I had wanted, I gerrymandered the pretense of confidence with a shabby facade of arrogance. How does one undo such a fault? I prayed for help. I trepidly asked for humility--knowing it was dangerous; that serving a dose of humility to the proud is an ugly business. I want so much to change that I asked for it anyway. Pride cometh before the fall? Then, bring on the ugly so I can get the ugly out of my soul. Ha! The day after I said that prayer, I got the lecture from my boss. It reduced me to nothing. I got what I needed.

Next up: Tales from the Reconstruction

State of the Celibate

Currently, I am working on a paper. So I blog. I have new stories for you but life has overwhelmed me. Many dear readers who followed the recent not fun exploits of the Celibate have worried about me. I can't believe how sweet y'all are. I wrote several posts without a follow-up because something new always happened. So this is a catch up post. (I'm sorry for the suckiness of the blog lately, much is changing but I'll get back to the good stuff shortly, including the dating scene.)

On Teaching
In January I posted here about my fears for the new semester. How is that going? Very Well! I teach night classes, and as I hoped, no one behaves like a teenager. I do have one student who took the class before and failed it. She likes to tell me how much she hates the subject because it's irrelevant. Surprisingly, when she said this last week, another student raised his hand and explained to her the benefits of studying this discipline. How cool is that?! They are in my first class that is a little more difficult because they tend to bore easily. But the second class is wonderful. We have a great reporte already, many say goodbye or thank me at the end of class. Teaching at night doesn't mean I can afford to slack off with the discipline. My students are native New Yorkers. Their respect has to be earned.

One night, my later class started packing up because we only had 5 minutes left. One got up to leave, then the rest began to follow. Oh no. I wasn't having it. I said, "Excuse me. No. Class is not over, get back in your seats. You don't leave until I say it's time to go." Two left but the rest sat back down. One said, "You have 3 minutes." I said, "That's right. You see, this is a power issue." Someone said, "Take the power back, professor." I continued, "It is my job as your teacher to control the class and maintain an environment conducive to learning. Having people leave whenever they want is NOT conducive to learning. You don't leave until I say so." Then I finished up and dismissed them. Beautiful! I was so proud of myself.

As most women do, I live with extreme dichotomies of personality. I do have a very tough and controlling side and I have it's opposite, the timid fearful woman. Because the strong woman disappeared last year, the timid one took over. And it created a disaster! Because of that, serious anxiety htis in the morning and lingers all day before teaching. Last year I was so depressed, it was all I could do to show up let alone control 40 students AND lecture. I let myself go some in appearance. I wore these old lady comfortable shoes and didn't bother much with makeup. I probably appeared quite timid.

Not this year. I am kicking arse and taking names. The bada** inside me has re-surfaced. The old lady shoes have got to go. I usually wear boots or Doc wingtips with stacked heels. I've also tried to punk things up a little, wearing dark lipstick and black gummy bracelets and keeping up with my nails. The way teachers dress really makes a difference in how students treat them, sad but true.

Things are already much better this year and I expect that to continue.

Making up last term
Some may recall this post in which I described the bind I had gotten myself into as a student. And how I was afraid to ask the rude professor to do an independent study to make up for his class in the fall. I came up with a solution the Friday after classes started. I still hadn't registered because of my fear. Having run out of time the week before, I went to school to get the registration paperwork, still not knowing what to do about it. While sitting in the office filling out the forms, I realized....I didn't have to make-up the work with that professor! I could just take a new class, start over. That would be much more pleasant and probably less work too. Yipee.

The deptartment chair got permission to grade my papers for the visiting professor I had last fall who couldn't grade them because he went back to Oxford. Hallelujah! That man is so kind and understanding. I was afraid to talk to him about registering because I hadn't talked to the mean professor yet, what a great slacker am I! When I did go in to see him, it turned out that he hadn't emailed the Oxford don yet either, even though he agreed to do that in December. His procrastination warmed my heart because it reminded me that these are my people, we come from the same warped planet. I started the paper for him this weekend. My friend and I got together on Saturday to help each other work. We had a lovely day.

The Uterus
What is the state of my uterus? I heard from a few concerned readers regarding my uterine problems. Some of you said you prayed for me and I think that worked to the extent that I went back to my old cycle of 17 days, an improvement from 10! My blood tests came back normal. But the nurse said I still need the sonogram because there is something wrong with me, healthy people don't bleed that much.

I decided against the sonogram for the following reasons: if there is something wrong then I can't afford to fix it anyway, if it gets diagnosed now and then I get insurance it will be pre-existing and not covered, we know I don't have any STDs, if I do have fibroids then they can't do anything about it other than prescribe birth control pills which may shrink them. So, what is the point of taking a picture of them? None. This did not convince the nurse. She said I could have an endometrial biopsy instead but could expect discomfort from that since I've never given birth and they have to go up the cervix. No thank you. She refused to give me the prescription until I have some tests. Sigh.

One kind person suggested I look into getting help from the state or checking Planned Parenthood for discounted ob/gyn services. I don't qualify for state aid. I haven't looked into the PP thing yet. A few readers have emailed me asking if they could help financially. Not wanting to turn such generous people away, I have added a donation button to the bottom of the blog. Thank you kind souls who donated! For now, my uterus has calmed down and my two week cycle is livable, I feel more stable. I'll take care of this some day.

Kitty, Kitty
The sick cat. She's likely dying. I took her to the vet because I hoped it might be something small we could treat for a nominal sum. Nope. She had to have blood tests because she has the symptoms of the old cat diseases: diabetes, renal failure, or hypothyroidism. The vet should call today with the results. So I wait to find out how my beloved kitty will die. I have responded to this with complete denial, feeling nothing.

Funny thing happened on the way to the vet. I don't have a cat carrier because she's car trained and sits quietly in my lap when we travel. For this trip, I wanted to splurge for a cab, so I had to go down the block to catch one. I walked with kitty half-way inside a canvas bag, her front half clinging to my shoulder. One man I passed said, "You need to get a real baby to play with." Then he repeated himself with contempt. No doubt he wanted to offer his services, either that or I truly disgusted him. Maybe both. No cabs stopped for the woman holding a cat. I can't blame them. After I stood on the corner for awhile, watching the cabs go by, a homeless woman offered to get me a cab. Then she asked if I had any change I could give her. When she hailed the black caddy I gave her 75 cents.
***
This catches everything up I believe. Thank you for your concern, it means a lot that so many people who never met me could feel such compassion for me. Happy fun stories should be forthcoming soon.
Love,
JL

Teaching Again

Tonight I have to teach again for the first time this semester. I'm always scared at the beginning of the term. I have to hide my shaking hands on the first day of class. This time the anxiety is greater than it has been in the past. I dread it. My students will be better because I only have night classes, which means the majority of the students are adults. The night students are so much better. More of them do the reading. They even seem appreciative of the teacher at times. They tend to take more responsibility for themselves. Some of them even seem to respect the teacher as a source of knowledge instead of an object of ridicule.

I don't have my syllabus done yet. I was just going to rearrange the one I used last year but I realized this afternoon I don't even have the book at home so I can't do that. I'll have to go into the office. Nice one with the procrastination. Once again, I'll be printing and xeroxing the syllabus right before class. So I should leave home now to give myself an hour and a half to get the crap done. yep. leaving now. I don't want to go.

One of my colleagues called me yesterday after getting high. He told me how excited he was for classes to start. How much he just loves teaching. This dude is a source of envy for me, not in a hateful way. I like him. I just wish I could be more like him. He's already published some articles, he finished all his coursework, he never gets incompletes. He has no fears about his abilities or talking to professors or getting into discussions, he seems to have limitless confidence. More confidence than anyone else I know at the department. A lot of guys don't like him for that very reason. They resent his confidence and bravado and berate him in displays of obvious envy. The women, however, seem to get along well with him. Interesting. He's also disgustingly young, 24 or 25.

Time feels frozen. Time feels external to me. The world feels external. Can I expel myself from reality? In many ways I already live in a space external to reality and this is why I have problems. But I exit life to escape my problems so it's all a vicious circle really. I watched a show about John Nash this weekend. He's the mathematician who did some genius work in the development of game theory then went mad. After 20 years he willed himself sane again. The producers interviewed him for the show. He said madness is an escape, that sometimes it's easier to let oneself go, to give in to the voices rather than deal with reality.

Sometimes I've yearned to leave everything and run forever. Every single day of life is this arduous fight with myself, my nature, my various levels of desire and rationality and the demands of the physical world. Just making sure to remember to complete my daily hygiene routine is a struggle. One of the psychiatrists they interviewed for the show mentioned that for the mentally ill things like brushing their teeth in the morning are difficult or monumental tasks. That made me laugh because lately I've been writing out a to do list for my morning hygiene routine in an attempt to make the whole thing habitual and thus no longer a 'task'.

Imagine a person who must make it a goal to shower every morning and has to write herself lists to remind her to shower in the morning. Imagine what it must be like for her to navigate adult life and responsibilities in addition to the monumental task of her own self-care. My forays into the world wear me out, causing me to spend days alone to recover. And now the semester cycle begins again, the cycle that became a nightmare from which I was released only 5 weeks ago. I willingly walk back into it, pretending I'm ok. Pretending I'm not terrified. So terrified I must shut down all feeling and thought. Turn auto-pilot teacher adult act on now.

Will I survive it this time? I still don't know if I survived the last one, this may be the last attempt. Or it could all turn around and be great. I walk the plank towards the chilly ocean waters. I love swimming, so maybe it won't be so bad this time. The numbers on my computer that mark the time keep going up and up....with each passing second I increase the danger of not having enough time. I have to remind myself to care about that, that things like being on time are important in the world.

NO Christmas for YOU!!

I was supposed to be at the airport right now for my flight to Ft. Lauderdale. This makes me sad. I'm disappointed in myself for failing again. I wanted to get away from this pit I live in. Relax somewhere with clean air in a comfy house with other people. So I woke up this morning very upset that I'd have to skip Christmas because my grades weren't done and I didn't have time to finish and turned them in. When I called my family, they changed my mind. Mom convinced me I could go because my flight left Florida the 29th and not the 30th as I had thought. Great! I had some brunch at the diner then got packed. I was excited. When ready to go, I pulled up the email with the flight info. But, oh what is this? My flight doesn't leave Florida until the 30th? Huh. Well didn't that just suck?

My mother is angry that I stayed home. It's all my fault of course. I just need to grow up because I should have planned ahead. Right. She said in the email she she sent after I hung up on her that I should have found out about the school being closed on the 24th before yesterday "but that's water over the dam". If the water is so over the dam why was she too mad to talk to me on the phone? My sister is sad because she's going to be bored without me. My father is actually sympathetic that I'm missing his big Christmas Eve fiesta.

I'm still packed. I guess I'll be unpacking tonight instead of eating homemade goodies with the fam in 70 degree weather. Here's what I am missing:

The beach. Exquisite food made by my mother, or her homemade fudge and toffee. The long breakfast after we open presents and the warm-fuzzies at giving people things they like. Real Christmas tree smell. Spending the day lying out in the backyard to read a novel and get a tan. My mother's kitchen full of food. Laughing with the sibs. Watching cable TV. Watching movies on a TV that's more than 10 inches. I won't get to do any driving either! I LOVE driving the Miami freeways. No palm trees with Christmas lights on them, or tacky plastic manger scenes and Maria shrines, no balmy nights of looking up at the stars and listening to the croaking frogs, no break from bohemian housemates with their incense and loud sex and curry-stank cooking....

Here's what I do not mind missing:

The tri-lingual Christmas eve festival at Pops' house with his Brazilian wife's family. Half of them speak Spanish because they emigrated to Panama, the other speak Portuguese. My step bro and sis speak English because they grew up here, but Portugese is the house language. They usually smoke a blunt before the party and are quite boring anyway so it's no loss. The girl wears something slinky on her perfect body and always has her boyfriend around. Everyone mingles in the house waiting until midnight, not speaking English. At some point they watch the Vatican mass by satellite. Then when it hits 12 am we have a toast and a prayer from Pops' wife's mother in Portuguese that is too long and dramatic, then a Spanish one from the cousins, and lastly the English one from my father. Then we all have to hug and kiss and cheer. After that the dinner buffet begins with lots of beans and rice and meats. The food rarely tastes good. The Flan isn't bad.

Once everyone has eaten their fill, all 20 people sit around the tree and the Walmart singing and dancing Santa from Hell whom I find scarier than Chucky. We have to sit on each other's laps or the floor because there aren't enough chairs, and watch as one by one everyone opens their two presents. I always attempt to feign pleasure at the Swapmeet gift from the wife, but I suspect I'm not good at it. My bro, sis and I always try to leave after the presents before Pops busts out the Karaoke on his big-screen TV. Sometimes we aren't so lucky...

That's what I would have been doing tonight instead of sitting alone in my bedroom with my cats and bluebooks, eating cheesepuffs and cold canned soup. Listening to Portishead on repeat might seem excessive, but it's perfect. I enjoy wallowing in this kind of miserable-ness. There is an art to it. When done right, it can be cathartic. If I'm wallowing, that means I'm not depressed. Depressed people don't have the energy to wallow. However, I did go out to do something special for myself. I went to the 99 cent store scross the street and bought christmas lights, candles, chocolate and 18 agw speaker wire. And some fixings to wrap presents that I haven't bought yet.

This is my first Christmas alone.

Bring flowers for tomorrow

Because each bluebook I read destroys part of my brain. I have 90 more to go. Maybe 10% of those are not convoluted displays of abstract English or the foul tumors grown from what was once a philosophy cell. The really special ones are Rorshach tests which call on my id to project some coherent thought on the blob of words. The Rorshach exams take three times longer than the others because I first have to figure out which question they have attempted to answer. Once I guess the question, I have to decode the nonsense into something that I can score as either right or wrong. I'm not exagerrating. Maybe I'll give you a sample from each when I'm not so exhausted.

At this bluebook rate of IQ erosion, by tomorrow I will be Autistic.
Call me 'Algernon'...And bring me some flowers. They will look pretty. I can put them next to my suitcase. My suitcase will be sad because it had to stay home. And this year there will be no Christmas. Because I was a bad, lazy adjunct (with an attitude too, according to ratemyprofessor.) Bad girl! But it's not all my fault. Satan's Administration(S.A.) helped too.

The S.A. maliciously designed the academic calendar to sap all joy and happiness from the workers. They scheduled mandatory final exams all day on the 23rd, the last one ending at 6 pm. Then they want grades and gradebooks submitted by the 29th. You must hand them in to the Registrar in person, during business hours. But, wait, the college is closed from the 24th-27th. So we have two days in which we can personally turn in our grades and roles,etc. Did they not tell the faculty about that earlier when the faculty were making travel plans? Of course they did not. Staff holidays aren't on the academic calendar they give to the faculty. But maybe that date is flexible? They know everyone will be late so they make it earlier than it needs to be. Oh No.

That's what I thought last year. I got called by the provost's office twice because my grades were late. The Department secretary called me twice also. The Dept. chair only called me once. The Executive Officer of my PhD program in a different college called me once from his home in Virginia because the woman in charge of GTFs in the grad program "was harrassing" him about my late grades because the Provost's office of the college where I teach was calling her. Got that?

Yeah. So. I can't miss the grade deadline AGAIN this year. Especially not after that crappy evaluation I got which required a meeting with the chair and in which I had to enthusiastically agree to have a teaching mentor, who is an adjunct I might add. And I shouldn't annoy the chair so soon after the last time, last week when he sent me that curt email about my unprofessional and unacceptable manner of returning student work and blah blah.

That was the night my block caught on fire. I was on my way to the office to resolve the problem when I saw all the fire trucks parked in front of my house. And the police had closed the street. So I'm thinking, "Where's the fire?" I look down the block. It's coming from a house five buildings from mine, on the same side of the street. A street of century old ghetto rowhouses. No one else was home so I decided I should stay in case it spread. Then I got in trouble.

I never in my life thought I'd say this, but all the ridiculous complication of grown-up land is making me nostalgic. Thinking of the Algernon story made me remember being very young and simple. Specifically, I remember playing little league softball when I was 5 years old. "Playing" meant that I wore the uniform and stood way out in the grass to pick flowers while all the other people shouted and ran and threw things. I liked to catch the stinkbugs that you could find under the white-weedy flowers. They were fun to play with. They'd climb around on your fingers and hands for a long time. And I watched the big fluffly clouds in the sky. Sometimes they would yell at me to chase the ball. But by the time I noticed, if I did, someone else already got it. There were leather ties on my glove...I remember how they tasted. Salty and chewy.

Bring Flowers for Algernon. You may never hear from JL again.

I have never...

Ok, there are lots of things I've never. But. This tops every other form of insolence from my students, college students. I told my mother what this boy said to me and she said none of her inner city high school students in all the 15 years she taught ever said that to her.

Here's what happened. This class is generally rude and unruly, you can read about them here. I gave them group work today, to come up with their own proofs for the existence or non-existence of God. Then each group had to present their proof for the class to critique. [A very cool assignment I was quite proud of.] At one point, it was time for the next group to go and I waited for someone to volunteer by raising his hand. We have to have a 'no talking without raising your hand' rule. Then this kid just starts talking. I said, "You didn't raise your hand." He did not stop talking nor acknowledge me. Some other kids started talking to him about it and he turned around to answer them while I stood in front of the class like an idiot. I asked him again to stop and for someone to raise her hand to give their proof. He completely ignored me. "Chris I don't see you raising your hand." Still talking. Then someone said, "Chris wants to go." So I said "Fine, whatever. Chris, go ahead." But he still hadn't stopped--and he was just babbling, not talking about his proof. So I repeated myself a little louder, "Chris, you can go now." Still ignored me. Then I yelled at him "Chris! Go!" The rest of the class made "oo-uoo" noises in a mocking tone. That's when he finally stopped and turned forward to face me. He looked me in the face and said, with much scorn, "Calm down."

I'm sorry, I have not been in college for 10 years to have some punka** 18 year old kid tell me to 'calm down' because he won't shut up.

I took him aside after class to talk about it, this is the first time I've done that. I should have earlier but oh well. I asked if he had ever told any of his other professors to 'calm down'. He said 'no.' I asked, "Do you understand how disrespectful that was?" He rambled on about how I had attacked him and it was just in the moment he said it and he didn't mean it like that and yes he does talk to the others that way and he's sorry it wasn't like that... Then I explained to him that I wasn't attacking him, I had to yell because that's the only thing the students respond to because of comments like his. That saying things like that undermines my authority which leads to situations like we had today. I told him I didn't appreciate it and sent him away. Unbelievable.

Before Chris did his little thing, another guy started chanting a little song to me. Because, I woke up feeling sick this morning. I'm getting a sinus infection and felt feverish. So I looked a little rough today, wearing sneakers, jeans and had just pulled my hair back in a messy bun. When I walked by this other kid he sang, "So-omeone's go-ot a hanggggg-over". This to the woman who has never been drunk in her whole life. He is the one who propositioned me so he just wanted me to pay some attention to him. I've decided to definitely sex up my look for their final exam. I'll walk around the whole time so I can distract the little boys and, oops, then they might not do very well.

These are supposed to be adults. The problem might just be with me. I'd accept that but my night class is completely different. One student thanked me for our class today because she enjoyed it so much. If I didn't have that night section I'd shoot myself for being such an incompetent failure. Man, I could so use some love tonight. A hug would be great. Just a pat on the back would do. Stupid empty bed.

UPDATE: The kid was much subdued next class. If only I'd talked to him months ago!

In Passing my Students

On the way into my second class today, the one with the fireman and the self proclaimed sex machine, I heard this:

"She's dressed up today!"
"Uh-oh, Fred's getting hot and turned on."
"Shut up! I'm not! I have a girlfriend."

I tried to listen to what else they said but I couldn't hear them anymore from the front of the room. I didn't know wearing my hair down and replacing my ugly old lady shoes with boots qualified as 'dressing up' but I guess they are easily impressed. They were also incredibly unruly again. I think there is a direct correlation between the style of my hair and their behavior. Last week when they graced me with such eloquence as described here, I also had my hair down. Even worse, I was wearing a long skirt and boots!! I should have known. No more boots. No more hair down. I better forget about even considering contacts instead of glasses. That would cause total mayhem.

Maybe I'll vamp it up on the last day of class--or for their final exam-- just for fun. I can wear a short skirt, high heel boots, contacts, dark lipstick and big hair, they won't even know what hit them. Heh-heh.

Come back for more TRUE stories of the strange, sad and pathetic exploits of me not having sex in the city.

The senses being dulled are mine

NYPD is staking out my block. Not very inconspicuously I might add. Yesterday they parked across the street in their white armored truck that says "POLICE" in bold letters on the sides. Tonight they have parked themselves in front of my house. I can look down from my 4th floor window and see into the front seat. Our friendly gentleman dealers have disappeared from their sidewalk. Wait, they aren't gentleman! I just remembered the pleasure I had one day of looking out the window to see one old man pee into the grass. In broad daylight.

Which reminds me, I had a particularly nasty day in the classroom this afternoon. I really can't believe the rude, impertinent, presumptuous, and disgusting behavior of so many of the students. This has been a colorful week for them too. Probably because I have implemented my "Goal #1 is to make my life easier" plan. I told them the final paper is optional. I pray none of them do it so I can have a nice Christmas. I wear jeans now because they don't respect my authority anyway so I might as well be comfortable. I also used classtime to grade their exams while they did group work. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not pleased with spending 15 or so hours of my own time unpaid to grade the dang midterm essay exams the school tells me I'm required to give. I was up from 2 am to 10 am last night grading and even though 1/3 were already done before that, I still didn't finish.

My plan is working insofar as I am now somewhat relaxed. I'm not surprised that their insults have increased in proportion to my relaxation level. Here are some choice excerpts from this week:

Tuesday I told the night class I didn't have their exams graded yet. One woman asked, as if utterly disgusted with me, "WHAT do you DO all day?" I responded by looking her in the face and saying "I'm a PhD student. Full time." Thankfully that shut her up since she's one of the polite ones.

In a discussion about the problem of knowledge and evidence I brought up WMDs. The middle aged fireman groans, "Oh here we go again." I have only mentioned that issue once before. And I do not express my own opinions on anything in the classroom so I've never said anything bad about Bush except that he, like every other politician, uses logical fallacies to sway the public and I gave them some examples. That's all. So his obnoxious remark was completely uncalled for and was especially grating since he has been nothing but condescending the entire semester. He sits in class with his arms crossed and smirks at me. He often rolls his eyes. And of course makes smartmouth comments like "I'd like to see how you get out of that one"--after he asks me a question and then laughs like he's tricked me. Buddy, I'm smarter than you are. I know that's hard to believe because I'm a little girl and I'm in a position of authority over you, it's just too bad your ego just can't handle that fact.

And the best was from the boy who sits in the back row thinking he is Mr Playa All That and A Bag of Chips! Today he did what no one in any of the 17 classes I have taught has ever done.
I asked the class what they would say if I held a gun to their head and demanded they tell me everything they know, threatening to shoot them if anything they say is false. They made a few attempts and I showed them how all their claims lacked certainty. As they sat in their skeptic stupor, he shouted out "I know that I am a sex machine." The class laughed. I said, "How do you know that?" Class laughed. He said, "Do you want to find out?" I laughed. Then said, "No. I don't. Thank you." Class mocked him.
Now I ask you, where does one learn that it's ok to insultingly proposition your teacher during class? I can understand if the prof sets up the dynamic that way and often makes sex jokes herself. But I'm not fool enough to encourage the horny buggers.

And then, the princess topped them all. She is an alpha-girl fresh from high school. She's collected a group of fans with whom she has loud conversations during my lectures and can be counted on for some rude display each class. Today as I sat grading their exams she came up and asked me why I'm not teaching anymore. "Is there something wrong? Like some kind of psychology thing? Is it because you've misunderstood the students?..." She only feigned concern. Her eyes laughed at me.

Because I had only 2 hours of sleep I answered her. I said I was tired so we were taking a break. She began to tell me that she's sure other professors are tired too so shouldn't I... my dirty look cut her off. I told her I'd be lecturing Descartes on Tuesday. Then she said, "Well, why don't you try mixing it up a little. And you know, do something like..." At that I laughed in shock, then gave her my most evil stare. I told her that if she wanted to talk to me she could see me during office hours because I was done talking to her now.

So, in what possible universe is it ok to accuse your professor of having problems then proceed to advise her on how to teach? I suspect she called some dean to tell on me. She used her cell phone shortly after and her side-kick blushed when she saw me watching them. It's happened before.

Good thing I decided not to care about this job anymore. Otherwise I might really be upset by that. The deputy chair in my department wants to see me. Probably to talk about my crappy observation report and to explain why they took away my 3rd class. Good times. I was going to tell them I didn't want a third class but I figured they would take it away so I didn't bother. Do I really have to go listen to advice on how to improve my teaching? I started out as a good teacher and now I suck. That shows that I know what to do but I'm not doing it. Might it have something to do with the students?

I Know that I'm the most inept

DISCLAIMER: This is a long and whiny post. Read at your own peril.

I find myself inert at the one thing I could always do. The one thing I never lost interest in suddenly repulses me. Ok, not so suddenly. I haven't finished a paper since December 2002. Last December I sat at my computer and then the computers at school trying to finish a paper, desperately wanting to finish that paper...I found myself paralyzed. I tried everything I could think of. But I wasn't interested in the thesis for one thing. I only chose it because the a-hole who has a crush on me stole my topic. Which he knew was my specialty subject. I couldn't tell if he did it for revenge for my lack of interest or his warped attempt to capture my interest.

He is so clueless! He just called me on Sunday and left a message asking me out. LOL. I haven't called him back yet. Last year he tricked me into having a date with him that totally sucked and he's still trying? He's lucky I don't hate him for what he did. The first thing he did was an extra credit presentation on my subject so I had to present on something else. Then he told me he was writing his paper on my topic. I didn't want to compete with him because he's one of those annoying over-working people. His presentation lasted an hour when it was supposed to be 15 minutes. So I ended up writing about something boring and couldn't finish the paper. Then he told me in February he didn't write about it afterall! He changed his mind. Oh yeah. He's a special one.

So last winter I had this awful 'holiday'. I couldn't finish that paper. And I still had to get my grades in. But I didn't finish grading their papers on time. The provost and others called me about my overdue grades. I ended up rushing them but messed a lot up so I spent two months making corrections.

Now when I sit down to write I stare at the blank screen, type in the preliminary stuff, type my thesis statement and then when I'm ready to go, I get nauseous. My mind refuses to co-operate. I process the arguments and ready myself to write them out and then I shut down. This is the point when I cry or blog or go numb because it's easier not to feel the frustration and anger. I want to write the damn paper. I don't know how anymore. How can that be? I've been doing this for 9 years! I used to write papers in my sleep. I could crank out a 6 pager in 3 hours and get an A in grad school. October 11th I had a 5 pager due. I had a thesis. Then I did the reading but what I needed to find wasn't there. The paper suddenly became more difficult than I could manage in the two days I had.

That's when I stalled. I missed the deadline. And then the weekend was over and I had to do the reading for my monday night class, which reading I did not have because I skipped the last class because I was very late. I forgot what time class started. I annoyed the prof the previous week. So I didn't want to increase his disregard for me by bursting in late, disrupting class and looking like a jerk. Later I found out he assigned a one page essay. I didn't do it because I was still 'working' on the not even started paper and didn't have time to read the 100 pages I needed to. I skipped the next class out of shame. And then the next one after that because I still didn't have the essay. Now I'm 3 weeks behind in reading which he knows because he gives us the texts in class. I think we have a midterm next week. No way do I have time to catch up now.

For my students, I had to write 3 different midterm exams last week (because they cheat). Now I have to grade them and make a handout with their paper assignment and a guide to writing philosophy papers because they won't read the book I made them buy which explains philosophy writing . And I stopped going to the P.I. class because the prof asked me when I'd have the paper done. I couldn't force myself to keep going without it. The course ends next week because he's a visiting prof. Our final paper was due this week. So I'm failing. Drowning. I don't know what to do.

I can't be both a good teacher and a good student. So this term I tried to be a mediocre teacher and a mediocre student. But I can't be a mediocre student. I'd rather do nothing than crap. I only have time to write crap. Which would be good enough to pass. But I won't let myself do it despite all my efforts to convince me otherwise. I wish I could withdraw from my classes but my teaching fellowship requires us to be fulltime students. (How sick is that?) I feel so trapped.

Writing this I've realized that the repulsion is due to my feelings of failure, not the subject. That's good to know at least. I really need help but I don't know what kind. Any suggestions? I want to scream. I want to do violence to something. Gee, I bet sex would be great right now wouldn't it? Not that I would know. ~The hills are alive with celibate cries.~