being sarah marie
They love to plant...
Pull, then Push
Savage Minds
The Trick is to...
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander
Bad Dirt, Annie Proulx
Brown, Richard Rodriguez
Namesake
Rewind to the present
Two long but fascinating articles about China and ...
I wish I knew where to start or how to begin. Ther...
I guess it's time to start coming out of hiberatio...
Privacy and the Net
Blogging and Free Speech
Month of Discontent
Sister Issues/My Hunger Strike
November 26, 2005
Wrap on Thanksgiving
It was great to be home for Thanksgiving. I didn't do a whole lot, which was perfect. I slept better in the last three nights than I have in the last three months at school, which was amazing. Very refreshing. Of course, then I felt tired all day because I actually got a good night's sleep for a change. What's up with that? Well, at least it was the good kind of tired.
More than anything, I told myself I needed to make a point to do some homework while I was home. Teachers were especially evil this semester, it seems, so I have all these assignments and final papers to start fretting about. I have heaps of homework till the end of the semester now, but more about that in another post.
So I read a "few" articles for one of my final research papers. It's too bad it's just a few, though, because I did over 50 pages of academic-paper reading, which is decent for a break. Nevertheless, so much is never enough. I could have done a ton more, so I'm going back to school with that anxious feeling of "Ack!"
On the bright side, let's see... Already mentioned several good nights of sleep. I saw three friends from high school, went with one to go see the latest Harry Potter. It was nice, but I think I'm starting to see things differently as I get older. Finally, that seemingly perfectly enticing plot is starting to get a little tongue & cheek for me. The depictions of good versus evil, all the magic, hints of pubescent sex-appeal, awkwardly obligatory portrayals of minorities, and all that stuff in the movie just feel like things I've seen before oh so many times.
Dang, did I spoil my bright-side paragraph with complaints? I can't seem to help it these days. Excuse me.
Onto more kvetching. I got really lucky on my way here. My first flight was delayed because of snow. In fact, we were the last flight to leave the airport, the one after ours, cancelled. I would have missed my connection and likely been stuck in Philadelphia overnight, but luckily I can always count on Philly to ridiculously delay flights, so I ran to my gate and got right onto my connection and off we were.
Tomorrow my flight back to school takes off at 7am. Wow, early. I wonder how much I'll sleep tonight. Three hours? Four? Five would make me a lucky guy. I just hope I'm not delayed on my way back. I have a friend who might be able to pick me up from the airport if I come at the right time. Otherwise, it's an overpriced taxi.
November 21, 2005
Going Home
I haven't done anything significant these last few weeks. I've expended all of my energy on my two jobs, packaging physics labs and failing again and again to teach a class of rambunctious 7th graders, and on school work. I've been walking around campus lately always sleep deprived and fluctuating between two main emotions: complete anger at some of my professors, and feeling totally overwhelmed at the prospect of finals. I know, it's no way to live.
I'm going home tomorrow. It's just what I need. I just hope I have no trouble flying out. It's supposed to snow all day. I've surrendered most of my excited about going home on break, though. I have so much homework. More than I've ever had for a break. I have these 4 mammoth final papers due within two weeks after my return, and so I'm facing the inevitable conclusion that a titanic amount of research needs to be done in the next week or two to give me some time for processing and writing in time to meet the deadlines. So along with a few other assignments, I know that I should spend my break attending to lots of school work.
Then again, I'm not so hopeful. The most likely scenario is that I'll do little to none over break, and then my last two or three weeks here will be complete hell. Complete hell: no sleep, tons of work, class, finals, long papers, 7th graders and their parents... Ach. Ach. Ach.
November 17, 2005
Neighbor Drama
How do you explain to your professors that your neighbor and her boyfriend kept you up all night as they indulged in insanely uninhibited sex until 4 a.m?
Last night filled up my cup of patience with her. See, this girl, who lives next door to me in a tiny 10'x10' single room, like mine, has effectively decided to let her boyfriend come live with her. I see him every night as we both cross paths down the corridor as I get a drink or visit with my other friends down the hall and he (always) goes to the bathroom.
This girl has the right to do whatever, and if she wants her boyfriend to visit, then good for her. But please, your room is a single for a reason. Also, if this guy is practically going to be living in our hall, the least he could do (as in intruder) is to be friendly on the most superficial level. A hello or smile would do. But no, he walks around and pisses in our toilet, leaving his light brown pubes all over, and he brushes his teeth a million times a day in our bathroom, leaving those white toothpaste/spit dot marks all over our faucet and mirrors. I put up with all that, AND he doesn't even have the decency to say hello? Well maybe he's a bit ashamed of himself.
That's not the only thing, our room arrangements don't help the situation. My desk is up against the wall we share, and her bed is on the other side of that wall. Each and every night, like a charm, I inevitably hear the giggles which then progress into moaning and occasional bangs on the wall. And then, after the climax of noise, there's a moment of silence, and again, like a charm, they emerge out of her room together and both go to the bathroom to brush their teeth together. That's the other thing about them, they're absolutely addicted to toothbrushing: 5 times a day, easily. I don't know, makes me think that if you brush your teeth that much, especially after producing such unusual sounds from your room, then you must be up to something nasty.
Usually though, this all goes down between 10 p.m. and midnight, and I rationalize my tolerance by telling myself that I'm still up anyway and that the only reason I hear is because I'm at my desk and so close to whatever they're doing. Besides, I really like where my desk is, right against my window. But last night proved me wrong.
At 2:20 a.m. I went to fill up my waterbottle and saw the boyfriend emerge from her room and march past me down the hall. I had never seen him over this late, what was he doing? I go back to my room and attempt to read till I fall asleep. At around 3 a.m. I hear a bang against that wall, and then the voices. It escalated, and I could hear her boyfriend's deep voice, which is especially good at penetrating our walls, moan incessantly into my room. On occasion I heard her giggle, every few minutes there was a bang against the wall, but his deep moans just would not stop!
They kept me up until 4 a.m. easily, and mind you I was in bed, which is not against our shared wall, so they were being especially loud and obnoxious. I was going to go over to tell them to shut up, but I was too tired; didn't want to hear an awkward shuffle as I knock on the door; didn't want to see her or her boyfriend partially naked, sweaty, nor panting; was too angry to attempt a "polite" request. Grrr.
The funny thing is that these two love birds claim to be very religious. A very long, serious personal essay that my neighbor's boyfriend wrote to persuade readers to remain abstinent till marriage has also notoriously circulated throughout my dorm, adding to the irony of the situation. Puh-leaze. I doubt they gather in her room nightly to sing their praises to the Lord.
November 11, 2005
Venting, Steaming
I can't seem to go too long without an angry post these days. Let me just say that this past day was my half birthday. Halfway through 20?! Yes, I do remember those things. It's a shame that the few dates in my life that I consider special have to be so crappy. For the last two years my birthday has been during or days before final exams, and my half birthday this year got me fuming with anger.
This Professor made a return appearance, and while an encore could have been his chance for redemption, he's gone in the other direction and then some. See, it's time for us to start picking our final paper topics in his class. "This is your only big paper in the class, so I expect it to be very good," he sneers at us.
I thought I was on top of the game and suggested my topic to him early last week. He wrote me back to let me know that he wasn't "sold" on it, and told me to do more research. I rethought the topic and suggested it from another angle. Still not "sold" on the topic. After a third try, he e-mailed me and told me to see him, which I did, today.
"Blah, bale, bale." I repeated everything I e-mailed him and tried to explain myself and then he said the same things he wrote in his e-mails and again repeated that I would need to "sell" him on the topic. What is this selling business?! I felt like I was trying to pitch a cheap product to Wal-Mart. I gave him a particular example, which by the crumpling of his nose, he apparently didn't like. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, I read it somewhere. I'm not 100% certain, but I read it."
"Well," he sneered, "I have a friend who's an expert in that field and I could ask her because I don't think you're right."
What a disgusting and stuck-up way to talk to your students!? Obviously he's all edumacated and has lots of scholarly friends he can wave around in conversations, but to engage your students in some sort of scholarly debate on your terms just to prove them wrong? That's a power trip. The deck's stacked, we know you'll win. It's dumb. Well he said all these things about my topic, which I didn't really care for but ultimately it became a self-fulfilling prophecy because after 10 minutes of coaxing and arguing he locked me into a position where I had no option but to verbalize his very rejections. I felt sick to the core.
Then after some silence, "Well it sounds like you really like that topic and have already put some work into it," (how perceptive), "so I don't want to kill it for you. If you really want to do it, go ahead, but you'll really have to have a good argument. Blah, bale, bale."
When I listen, in between the lines of his concessions I hear, "Well, you like the topic, but I don't, so you can go ahead and do it, but unless you produce some sort of PhD quality dissertation, you'll probably get a bad grade."
Then he tells me that if I want to research that topic I should go to grad school for that. Oh and by the way, if I want to go to so-and-so state university for that he'll write me a letter of recommendation.
"Oh, wow, thanks?" After writing me off and making me feel so dumb, that's the last thing I expected to hear him say. I should have been flattered, but I felt belittled. "Well, I was actually eyeballing a program in Columbia about that kind of stuff," I respond.
"Ah yes, they have a lot of good stuff going on in Columbia," he tells me. A lot of good stuff. Good stuff that apparently is too good for me.
Well, our meeting wasn't enough, so we met after class to discuss his ideas for my final paper topic. Ironically, everytime I tried to phrase his suggestions in my own words it was, "Well, no not quite." Same as before. Then after an awkward silence he gives me this ranting lecture about how he doesn't want to see a summary of other people's arguments and how it better be really good because it's our only major paper in the class. Then when he finished he looked down on me from his seat on top of a desk and gave me this piercing look.
I said nothing. What did he want me to say? How incompetent does he think I am? It's clear to me that in his mind, he can make me out to be as incompetent as he wants, no matter what kind of work I produce. Goodness for him is socially constructed, and apparently he's already constructed me as some polar opposite. What should I have said? What does he think I've been doing for the last 15 years of my life? Bumming around?!? Is that why I got into this fucking elite college with all of its "high standards"? And did I not learn anything at all after so many years of college?
I felt so dirty and infantalized. I felt like I needed to shower to wash all of this disgusting negativity off of me. Ew.
"Well, I have nothing to say, so I guess I'll go." I awkwardly packed up my notebooks and stumbled out of the classroom.
November 04, 2005
Can I get a hand-clap?
The last few nights I've been submerged in ice-cold showers, emerging out of them with my teeth clanking. Aside from really pissing me off, it's made me realize that I need to change my showering schedule if I expect any hope of experiencing warm water again. I'm devastated that this might mean an end to my 2 a.m. showers; but hey, since showering is the last thing I do before bed, this change might mean an earlier bedtime for me, more sleep?
My graduation situation hasn't improved at all. I've met with my faculty advisor weekly for the past three weeks, and he's always begun our meetings with "no progress on the graduation application," with a cheesy grin. Something about that grin makes me wonder if he's just screwing me over on purpose to get himself off over the power he has in this process.
The basic situation is that I submitted my part of the application as soon as I found out it was available. The faculty advisor then has to complete another application to verify everything. One thing he has to indicate is what classes counted toward my major, which seems dumb because the administration tracks that anyway, whatever. The thing is, I got into this program back in the day that waived me from nearly every graduation requirement and subsequently I don't have a major. So my advisor is playing it all dumb, like "doh I dunno what to do about that part of the application."
Part of me thinks he's just being ridiculous, because if I'm waived from all the junk then it should be extremely easy to fill out the form: indicate the program and write "EXEMPT." But my advisor insists on waiting for the administration to figure out how they want him to indicate it. Geez. I'm getting a little impatient, because 3 weeks is getting to be a long time, and I really don't think this little hurdle is worth the wait. Actually, I really don't think this even is a hurdle. But he's waiting. He even suggested that if he doesn't hear back he might not even submit it by the deadline, so I'm getting a little jittery because really the deadline for all this stuff is in a week.
Whatever. If there's one thing I've learned these past couple years, it's that it's just really not even worth getting caught up in endless bureaucracies. They'll do whatever they want to do, most things usually work out OK. Meh.
On a lighter note, things have been getting crazy in my dorm lately. My friend and neighbor suddenly took a liking to the Kanye West song, "Gold digga" and since she knows I'm the only one who can appreciate that kind of stuff to the most remote extent, she insisted that we learn to rap the song. I have to admit I have no flow, and so trying to mimic Kanye is way out of my league, so I feel a bit ridiculous. But she's printed out the lyrics for both of us and we've been practicing for the past few nights. It's outrageous fun. I sing the "get down, girl, go 'head get down," part and she replies "on your knees" as we both work our booties down to the ground. Wow, I know. I know...
We usually follow that song up by dancing to Jessica Simpson's remake of "These Boots are Made for Walking," which is also outrageous. Nobody on the floor seems to particularly like the song, "ew I hate that remake" is the average comment I receive, but I just can't resist the temptation that song lends to busting out a hot line-dance. So there's a lot of stepping around and do-si-do-ing, but then when Jessica breaks it down, we do it double. All I can say is that you have to be there to see the hilarity of what goes down when we hear, "Can I get a handle clap, for the way I work my back... Drop it, push your tush... Yeeeehaaaaaaw!!!" Let's say that we bring the words to life. There's a maneuver for every sung image, LOL.
If anything, these will be the moments I will miss from college. I'm just glad that now I have a few of them to carry on with me in my memories.
