Suffocation

I hate to think that I painted a too-rosy picture of my situation back at school in the last few posts. I wish I had that rosy-dandy feeling all the time, but as much as I appreciate the housing and the friend situation this year around, I can't deny that I'm getting stronger and more unavoidable shivers with every step I take deeper into the back-to-school pond.

Get ready for a far-fetched metaphor.

Think about college as a swimming program. Your aim is to learn how to swim, just like in college your aim is to learn whatever they shove down your ears during lecture. Whereas we would like to start our lessons in the shallow water and take it step by step till we feel comfortable, sometimes college decides to take a different approach. They board you on a ship and sail out to the middle of a big, deep lake. You stand on the ship terrified of the cold, deep waters, and besides, this isn't what you had in mind anyway when you thought about swimming lessons.

The instructor, a big beefy olympic swimming stud whose prime passed a couple decades ago, shouts, "JUMP!" Trustingly, or naively all of the students jump but you don't and the instructor starts yelling at you. You hold onto the railing and try to block out his shouting as you watch your classmates land in the water. They look like a pack of confused baby ducklings trying to survive on their own. Some tread the water in panic, shouting and swallowing water, as their body slowly sinks. Others bob up to the surface and manage to float, while a select few begin to breast stroke their way to shore 1000 feet away.

You tell yourself that this isn't what you signed up for, and it's not something you want to go through, but in order to be a respectable member in society you have to learn how to swim and this program is considered really prestigious, too. But you watch in horror as some of your classmates drown and others get tired and appear to head towards the same fate halfway to the shore.

The instructor is irate by now because you didn't follow his orders. He marches to you, and you hold on tight to the railing, but your dinky body is no match to this angry olympian's. He grabs your body, tears you from the railing, and throws you into the water. The adrenaline rushes through your body and traumatic fear fills you up as you fly through the air. Then you make a painful splash into the water and you don't know what's more shocking, the pain from the splash, the emotional shock, or the freezing water, but you can't focus on that for too long because you're in the water and you don't know how to swim but you ought to figure out quick if you plan on staying alive.

You tread and kick and try to keep your head above the water although for five minutes it seems like you're struggling just to stay afloat. Eventually you manage to avoid drowning and then you set out to swim back to shore. You don't know how to swim so your pace is slower than a turtle's on land. Your limbs are tired and begin to hurt, so you pause and endure the sensation of the freezing water until you resume gliding slowly across the pond.

You finally make it onshore and find that only 5 of the original 20 made it back. The instructor greets you by telling you how much you need to improve instead of praising the fact that you beat the odds and survived. You're glad the nightmare is over but you dread the other three required sessions in this course which presumably involve more dramatic beginnings and more difficult swimming--perhaps they'll make you struggle through raging ocean waves or countercurrent to a gushing river?

Right now this is my last round, and I feel like I'm at the point where I'm glued to the railing fighting for my dignity and a more humane way to be taught. I don't know what to say or do to make the instructor leave me alone or treat me differently, but I'm doing all I can.

I'm on the edge for the last time. All the previous times I've surrendered and endured the shame and pain, and every time left me wishing I could say, "never again." In these purgatorial days before my fate for the next couple months is decided I'm wishing that I somehow manage to outsmart the instructor.

I loved Yolanda's idea in my last post to do my thing and let my advisor weep after I hand in my final project. I just hope I don't have to do some weeping of my own first.