Work, Mistakes, and More Work.

There's not been much of me around here for the last several days, and I suppose the reason for that is the same reason that it has always been. Primarily, I haven't the time to take away from school to write on this blog. The only reason that I am here now is that I needed a mental break from the constant thinking, planning, and worrying about my seminar papers. To briefly summarize, my first term of graduate school was insane, and I had more then typical amount of trouble. (However, not as unusual as some of the stories I have heard. One person told me that they knew of student who lived in her car for a year while she went to grad. school. It eventually caught up with her.) As a result of the problems from the first term, I have a couple of incompletes that I have been playing like hell to get done. I'm halfway there, but the road is still very long. Tonight, I will work some more.

Yet, just to give you an example of some of the trouble that I have had, I present the following. While going through and grading 40 freshman essays, about four pages each, I came across one paper that I suspected might have been plagiarized. The tip-off was the wide range of sentence style and vocabulary. One sentence looked far too simple, the next one looked far too complex. (To jump ahead, the student didn't plagiarize, but was having significant trouble.) I met with the Professor for the class and we talked about it. She said that we should meet with the student to find out what was the deal. The challenge was to arrange all three schedules together at once. The student proposed a time to her, and then she asked me if the time the student suggested would also work for me. I said yes, but that I needed a confirmation to ensure that the time proposed was going to be the actual meeting time.

Purely by chance, I stopped by the professor's office to hand back some quizzes that I had recently graded. To my surprise, she was in the meeting with the student. I sat down and was available for a little less than five minutes before the student left. The professor was not too happy. I apologized profusely, explained that the adjustment to grad. school has been particularly difficulty for me, and described what I was doing to get everything caught up and not be kicked out of the program altogether. She thanked me for giving her the context, and I sheepishly left her office feeling like a big jerk. Until I realized that the mistake was hers not mine. She was supposed to get back in touch with ME. In my mind there was still a question about where we were going to meet. To be brief and to understate, I felt a bit annoyed.

Ugh. I'm on page six of the problematic seminar paper, and I need to finish it up in the next week so I can be straight with the financial aid office and continue with school. I'm also realizing that to have a job in this field there are two huge factors in doing well: performance, which should be obvious, and appearance, which isn't. Doing well in your courses is only half the battle, you also need to both exude a confident professionalism that assertively impresses practically everyone you meet. I could summarize it by saying that it is like office politics, but somehow it feels more sinister than that. Keeping this in mind, this guy is my personal hero of the moment.

Gunga Done

It occurs to me that most kids today, when they hear Gunga, they immediately think of the craptacular Star Wars character Jar-Jar Binks. Wasn't he a gungan? As I am thirty, all of the modern popular-culture points of reference are becoming harder and harder to keep up with. If I were fifteen again, I would probably know what species Jar-Jar was as if there were an instinctual part of my brain that focused solely on movie trivia such as this.

Yet, sadly, no. My title does not refer to the lovable Jar-Jar (insert irony here), instead it refers to a recent paper that I have finally completed about Rudyard Kipling. Author of Gunga Din, Kipling has been oppressing me with his short story "False Dawn" for the past several days. With space for only four pages, I attempted to argue how Kipling was critiquing the English colonists in India in an attempt to reform the empire and not reject it. Immediately, one can see that my paper was about as craptacular as Jar-Jar. Not that the idea is completely wrong-headed. With some tweaking of the logic, and extensive research, I could write a sufficiently decent paper with such thesis. What makes this work so craptacular is that I tried to argue that thesis in four pages. I could have used more time for revision of course, but I had none. I'm just glad it is, as I said in the title, done. While maybe not a full fledged miracle, I'm going to take this minor achievement as a blessing.

Brief Miracles

This blog will necessarily be brief because I am still buried under a mound of work that continues to pile up despite my best efforts to vanquish the aforementioned pile. It hasn't been an easy week for me, and the ones coming up are promising to be even busier than the ones before. Why am I making all of this vague? To be honest: I'm not quite sure. So how's this for specificity, I have two short papers to write, research to do for three (15+ pages) seminar papers, four classes to teach, about a dozen more books to read, and countless, countless, oh-so-freakingly-unbelievably-countless more academic articles to read. This cruel mathematics of work makes accomplishing small victories seem like mockeries. Instead of thinking, "hey! I got that paper done," I instead think "oh-my-god! I just finished a paper, but there's MORE to do."

Frankly, it is beginning to worry me because I'm not sure my poor old thinker (aka the B-R-A-I-N) can absorb it all so quickly. I'm hoping that this relentless assault of information will somehow do just that--osmotically filter into my consciousness--so I can emerge from the graduate school experience with a degree and future prospects intact. Talking with the other grad. students, I discovered that falling behind is not that uncommon. Yet, I only pray that I don't make a routine experience stunningly unique by falling further and faster behind that anyone else in the history of grad. school. I tell everyone to wish me luck, but I really should be asking them to pray for a miracle to be sent my way. I really, really, really need one.

No room for Martians

I thought that I would put this link [Martian Rovers] in one of the side bars of this blog, but I got to thinking: where?

How quickly have I neglected some of the information that I put there. Mostly, I visit the other blogs on a regular basis, and I do check out the daily readeria stuff--but I need to reorganize a bit. Yet, as seem intent on imitating a broken record, I must return to the oft-repeated refrain: I don't have time. My main focus right now is to stay current with posting; maybe in the spring I will do an overhaul. Who knows? Perhaps at that time, I'll even shell out some cash for a place to host some images. Although it would be hard to keep up with posting images as well as entries, I'm sure they'd freshen up the site a bit.

Personal Battles

I seriously need to start thinking about the seminar papers that I have to write by the end of the term. And one of the paper needs to be at least eighteen pages long! I have never written a single paper that has been that long in my whole life. In one sense it should be good for me, but in the other sense--Holy Frijoles! What the hell am I going to say for eighteen pages? I've thought about writing about the events surrounding september eleventh and examine how people have created narratives as a way to help them cope, struggle, or overcome the trauma surrounding that day; essentially, this would be cultural criticism. Yet, I don't want to delve into the political issues surrounding that either, so I figure that I'm going to do something on a book about the Vietnam War. If I center it on a book, I will be closer to what I really want to do which is a study of language. But, as this early apprehension is boring you, I'll talk about the class I observed this morning (with no guarantees that it also won't be boring.)

For the most part, the class was a typical college writing course. The students were students, and the instructor was the instructor. I know this is tautology, but if you've been in a freshman writing course, then you'll know exactly what I mean. The one thing that seemed exceptional was a clique of about six guys in the corner who goofed off most of the hour. Yet, in an odd way, because they hated the essay that was assigned, they had the best discussion about it because they had to use critical thinking to pull the thing apart. One of the guys was obviously in the military because he wore a dress uniform--army, I think. I overheard a comment answering another guy's question where a machine gun hangs on your side when you sling it over your shoulder. I wonder if he ever thinks about going to Iraq. Briefly stated, everyone should read about 5 entries of Kevin Site's blog.

That's all for now. These papers are not going to write themselves. Besides if I write another thing today, it will an e-mail to my beautiful girlfriend, who I am looking forward to visiting in the Big City this weekend.

Cafe of Classes

Another study break. Primariliy, this entry will probably function more as a note for myself and as an encouragement to get ahead on all of my work. (But, I guess most of my blogs entries function that way.)

So, while I was sitting in the Library Cafe--a small busy, overpriced, but brightly lighted place--I got a call on my cell phone; the professor that I T.A. for wanted to talk. Holy Crap! What the hell did I do? Was it about the class discussion I missed because I overslept? Was it about the minor struggle we had over the class website? (I figured having one was a good idea, and she, essentially, didn't. She cited the need for personal interaction with the students, to which I reply: hunh?)

I had just finished a half hour meeting with one of her students to discuss revisions to his late paper. Innocently offensive, his paper associated the word "dark" with black people, drugs, and poverty. I had to explain to him and show him how what he meant was not what he wrote. I think he was shocked when I pointed it out to him.

When I told the professor where I was and what I was doing, she wanted to come over to talk in person, maybe even buy a sandwhich. Once arrived, she explained that she wanted to know if I would be able to teach by myself on the last day of class before finals week. There, apparently, is a disabilities conference for literature types, something which is the first of it's kind and is supposed to kick major you-know-what. As this professor has a son with cerebal palsy, she is really excited about going. Another fellow grad. student really wants to go, really wants my professor to go, and encouraged the professor to ask me if I would be able to cover for her. She apparently said, "Ask Zhaf to teach class that day. I've heard him talk in class. He can do it." I suspect half of my professor's excitement stems from the grad. student's excitement. Both have a personal connection to this issue.

Thus, as I am already going to be teaching two writing classes by myself for another grad. class, I am now going to be teaching two literature courses--one with the prof., and another by myself. So, in addition to the major grad. papers I should already be writing on, I am now going to have to teach four classes. As professor Frink would say: Great googly moog! I already don't get enough sleep. There's going to be a lot of pain in the glayving. Yet, it should be a learning experience for me; I just hope it might be for the students as well.

Night of the Living Deadlines

Okay, another quick entry for today. Even though I'm continually being smacked in the head by waves of work, I am managing to get some stuff done, which when I think about it is pretty incredible because I tend to suffer from the soul-sapping despair that accompanies a bunch of work that doesn't seem to have a clear or definite end. I stayed up far too late last night after working on the computer and managed to get four and half hours of sleep before returning to campus to begin the computer work all over again. I'm not kidding when I tell that I slept the sleep of the dead. I half surprised myself by not waking up and moaning "Brains! I need BRAAINS...grlahgggh."

The only thing that hasn't seemed to have worked out is the writing workshop appointments I have made to meet with students to discuss their assignment. I spent--and I am not kidding--about an hour and half nursing an over-priced coffee waiting for the student to arrive. Yet, I wasn't idle; I managed to complete plenty of reading, the sheer amount of which is an utter tyranny. Right now, I am checking my e-mail about once an hour, waiting for replies and confirmations from about five students for other appointments, so I don't have to wait that long again. (I can almost taste the panic expressed in their e-mails about the deadline. Time is devouring their equanimity and the remaining moments they have of non-panicked work on this assignment beast. As a fellow student, I can relate.) Actually, I wouldn't mind spending six or seven hours in the coffee shop, but I wasn't able to checkout a laptop over the weekend as I have been able to in the past, and thus am chained to a desktop computer in the grad. computer lab. Still, the work will continue tonight, and I am seriously looking forward to Tuesday when I can start my next paper which is due the following week: fun! (Feel the irony of last sentence! Taste the excitement of new assignments!)

Yet, I do enjoy my classes and consider myself lucky to have these kinds of opportunities to learn, something which I am indeed doing. The challenge is trying to avoid being zombified, which as reflected in the movies, means more long nights to come.

Work, Work, Work

It seems that I have been having a relatively hard time keeping up with this blog. I must admit that I feel that I am still adjusting to the demands of scholarly life. And yet, I feel that I have more of firm grip on this term than I did the first, even though there is way more work to do. Besides three graduate seminars, I'm apprenticing with a more experienced grad. student so I can learn how to eventually teach freshman writing. Yet, perhaps more importantly, my personal life (read: relationship) has been solidfying into a kind of stability, but with the realization that relationships take an enormous amount of work. It's nothing that can be taken for granted. I'm still pretty much committed to maintaining a daily blog for the forseeable future. Yet, with the amount of reading that I've had to do, with the looming deadlines of seminar papers rising on the horizon, I don't think that I'll be able make it a daily thing. Instead, I think I'll try to shoot for three or four posts per week. I hoping that I can devote more time to the quality of the entries as the quantity may go down. (But as a plea to my handful of readers, don't abandon me yet. There's more to come.)

I don't have much else to say, except that when I think of something I'll try to remember this blog and share it here first.

FSI (Fiasco Scale Index)

Ugh! Today has been nothing short of miserable. Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Earthquakes all have some particular system of designating how their particular event measures up. For example, a class five hurricane is immensely more destructive than a mere tropical storm, an earthquake that measures 9.0 on the richter scale will level anything standing, while a 1.0 or a 2.0 will be barely felt. Therefore, I propose we develop a system whereby horrible days can be scientifically quantified. A miserable day can either be a mild headache-inducing nuisance (1.0) to a full-blown fiasco (5.0). My day so far ranks between disaster and fiasco, a respectable 4.5.

Furthermore, this has been one of those rare days when a single event cascades beyond your control and spins quickly into a meandering chaos. In brief: I woke up late. Once in my car, I realized that I left my financial aid check at home and had to retrieve it. As I work up late, all of the parking spaces were full; therefore, I spent slightly over an hour following people to their cars imitating a very large vulture. I circled three separate parking lots before fate relieved me from that purgatory. I had to park illegally for fifteen minutes to return the laptop I checked out in order to avoid an automatic twenty dollar fine. (At one point, I seriously considered driving back home so I could take the bus. It would have taken me about the same amount of time to do that as it did to find parking.) To cap things off, even though I rechecked out a laptop from the library, I haven’t been able to find a wireless connection, despite the notices posted everywhere that the area I am sitting in should allow a wireless connection to the Internet. If this recount seems a little tame as fiascos go, it is purely because I couldn’t really detail all of the other minor annoyances that have merged into a perfect storm. I still have about two days of work to cram into a single day (today) and therefore need to bury my head in some books. I sincerely hope that today will be much better.

Theme Song

Another day done, and I admit: I am beat tired. I'm getting to the point where I'm realizing that I can't spend more time doing homework because there is only so much time in a day. Even though I've been working pretty solidly from early morning to late at night, I still have work and tasks that have to be left for the next day. Therefore, it appears that the new challenge is how to be more productive and get more work done in the same amount of time.

I'm not sure how other grad. students feel about it, but it seems that although there is more work to complete this term, psychologically it is not as difficult as the first term. All of the initial adjustments of the first term are complete, and now all that is left here on out is to discover how to embody what one professor has said "grace under pressure." A potentially emotionally draining experience, one has to figure out ways to keep the spirits up. Everyone should have something like this to cheer themselves up. If everyone could have their own theme song, the world would be a perfect place.

Study Break

This is an official break from studying as I am struggling to keep my mind interested in the material that I have to read for tomorrow. The subject matter should be engaging enough, but the presentation has my brain pleading for any kind of respite, hence: the blog. I could tell you about my day, that it has been a full day of non-stop work, that I still have hours of work to do tonight, and that I won't get all of it finished by the end of the evening. But I won't. My mind needs a break from work, so I'll tell you about my school life as a teenager.

Surprising absolutely no-one who knows me, I wasn't exactly the most popular kid in class. If all of your teen-years-life could reduced to The Breakfast Club analogies or comparisons--I was a cross between the Anthony Michael Hall (Brian) and Ally Sheedy (Allison) characters. I had all of the interests and mannerisms of the nerd, artfully combined with the odd creepiness of the freak. (Someone needs to develop a personality test based on that movie if they haven't done so already.) My bushy-Yahoo-Serious hair and weird habit of reading books while sitting on the floor of the hallways were about the only thing that distinguished me to the rest of the student population. Looking back, I have to say that I sort of hated middle school and high school, purely because of the social hell I'm assuming everyone has to endure in their own way. Thank goodness it's all over.

Bengal Blindness

I've only a couple of minutes to make a post, but it has been so long since I've been able to write anything here, that I figured it was now or never. I haven't given up on the whole blog thing; it has just been the mere fact that I am still behind on a lot of work that I'm slowly chipping away at to get done. For the curious, there is a major paper that I need to have completely done in the next two or three weeks. Combine that with the several novels I will have to read by the end of the term, and the numerous hours that I will need to log in the library doing research. Neither here or there.

Two things that I figured I would mention here. The first is that I had dream about a tiger--a real Bengal tiger that I was chasing around the northwestern United States train stations. What does this dream mean? I haven't the foggiest. All I remember is that I had to take the train to Seattle to find the tiger there and help people negotiate their way around him. Now that I'm remembering a little bit, I suppose what I was really doing was lecturing them on what do when they encountered a Bengal tiger in the train station--what to avoid when face to face with one, how to know what a tiger will do. (Specifically, never eat a hamburger in front of a tiger. It might make him hungry.) I'm not sure if the tiger got around by using the train itself, but the image a tiger in a business suit taking the six o'clock to Portland or Vancouver is rather funny--at least it is to me.

The other thing is the short non-fiction essay I had to read in preparation for my class. In it, a woman described what it was like to have her eyesight slowly deteriorate from childhood to her present condition as a middle-aged woman. Very nearly blind, she described what it was like to have worn contact lenses for the first time as a teenager, something which was a brand new technology then. Although I am not very nearly blind like she is, I have worn glasses ever since the second grade. I distinctly remember what a revelation it was to see individual trees on top of the distant hills that I frequently looked at--or how crisp and clear the moon was during some of the brighter nights. I had not known that I was missing anything, so to see it for the first time as a seven-year-old or so was truly a shock. Since then, I have a somewhat complicated relationship with my glasses. A part of my personality, they're something that I don't think I'll ever give up for contact lenses or corrective surgery. And I really don't want to.

That's all for now. I have to get to class now. As for future blog entries, I'll try to post more frequently, but I can't promise nothing. To employ a tired cliche, work will have to come before pleasure.

Updates

There haven't been many updates as there used to be. The first, and most obvious, reason for this was the mid-winter break. I did not have regular access to a fast computer, nor could I waste an hour or more of time fooling around on the internet. As a result, even if there was something that I wanted to post, I couldn't. Now, despite easy access to a computer, I need to devote more time to other things. All my intentions to write my blog with some kind of regularity during the school year are melting much like the ice that covers nearly everything outside. I could update the poll, put up the books I am currently reading on the left side bar, and work on the commenting system, but I really have to budget my time, and as far as things go, this blog requires an invest in time that I can't afford right now. Perhaps these updates will occur later.

As a side note, the comments here have really picked up. I wonder just who could possibly be making these insightful remarks providing me with much needed feedback. Whoever this person is, I'm guessing she's female and that she is assuredly much hotter than the surface of the sun--a billion times hotter. But that's just a guess. [As the fellows in Monty Python's Flying Circus might say: wink, wink, nudge, nudge.]

Alice B. Toklas

The midwinter break is over, and I am now once again at the computer lab getting ready for school tomorrow. The break has been tumultuous but not disastrous. Before it had started, I envisioned myself spending at least two weeks on the couch vegetating beneath the cool blue glow of video games and television. That did not happen. But right now, I don't have much time to explain what did happen as there is still much to get done before tomorrow morning--which, by the way, holds the promise of even more snow. Perhaps a school cancellation? I doubt it. (There happens to be slightly over two feet of snow at my parents house, one of the many places I've been these last few weeks.)

What I really want to mention is the odd dream I've had recently where I distinctly remembered the name of Alice B. Toklas. What creeps me out about her name is that I have never heard of her before my dream; yet she is a real person who lived and died well over thirty years ago. What's more, she happened to be a literary figure and therefore falls in the purview of my professional life. I'm not one to usually believe in the paranormal, so I figure her name must have registered in my subconscious somehow and has decided to come out only recently. I have fallen asleep in front of the television a few times which could explain her name lodging in my brain; or else, someone just outside the range of normal conversation had been talking about her and I absently must have absorbed that mention. Yet, I do have a certain, if uneasy, regard for the mystical and spiritual nature of humanity, so I wonder if I should assign some meaning to my fastening onto this name. Should I study Toklas? Will her work figure in mine somehow? Was her name on the handout for the reading group I'm in but don't remember. I'm sure her name will crop up again somewhere, but I'm not sure when.

Mid-Winter Break

This winter break is a glorious respite from the haggard overwork of grad. school life. Not that I don't enjoy school--I really do--but I was certainly on the cliff's dangerous edge for awhile peering over straight into the abyss. Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't return to that edge once break is over, but I'm hoping that I will be more prepared to handle the challenges it will present. Also, the paper that I'm supposed to write over the break has been haunting my mind for the last several days. I haven't written anything more on it, nor I have done any of the necessary reading for it to do a good job.

I have been to the beach on a mini-vacation for three days. Every trip to the beach is far too short. If you are able to spend a week or more at the coast during the off-season, I truly recommend it. Nothing compares to the stormy sea and the wind-tossed galleon-like clouds sailing above it.

I also have seen the third installment of The Lord of the Rings movie, and I must say that I really enjoyed it. In a way, it is a shame that the trilogy is over, but with the smashing monetary success this thing has had at the box-office, it won't take a genius to predict more sword and sorcery movies will be showing up in theatres in the coming year or two. Let's hope these new movies are more like The Lord of the Rings, and less like Legend or that Val Kilmer movie, Willow, entertaining as they are in their own way.

The Restaurant

Today, I was incredibly unproductive. Instead of grading exams like I should have done, or doing the laundry that has been persistently and silently building up in the hallway--a monument to soiled clothing--I spent most of the day watching television and surfing the internet. Most of what was on television wasn't any good, and when I think about the other things I could have done to waste time besides watching the tube--like read a good book, catch up on extra sleep, or even getting out of the house to watch a movie--I sink further into murky swamps of regret. Yet, there's still time to get all of the exams graded by tomorrow, so I'm not terribly worried.

I've been thinking about the last few weeks of grad. school. After the last day of one of my grad. school classes, a student whom I'll call Martha arranged a get-together at one of the local Italian restaurants--a small place with a nice atmosphere, but also obviously trying way too hard to be chic at the same time; it was a little overpriced for what it was. (You can dress a college kid up as a fancy French waiter and make him look like he has all the class in the world, but he is just a college kid after all, and in the presence of other college students like ourselves, he will easily slip into discussions about Spongebob Squarepants and college football.)

To digress for the moment, Martha is the other T.A. for the same ENG104 class that I T.A. for as well. We shared the T.A. workload over the course of the term. Although I envy Martha for her restless energy, it's an energy that she once revealed causes trouble for her. She's one of those women who are always doing three things at once, who always volunteers for too many projects, and cannot say no to people. Consequently, she suffers the physical result of such academic and social super-heroism in anxiety and unexplained night panics. She says that people often praise her for what is, essentially, her inability to relax and take it easy.

I was the first person to arrive at the restaurant, even though, by my watch, I was only five minutes early. I thought Martha would have already been there acting as host. Thus, I identify myself 'Nerd' for displaying typical nerd behavior--I showed up first. However, I apparently wasn't the only to arrive early. Only a minute after I walked through the door, someone else from the class arrived, let's say her name is Michelle. I suspect that Michelle was waiting in her car and must have seen me walk in, inwardly laughing at me for being the Nerd who didn't think to wait in the car like she did. Martha and her husband showed up just a few minutes later, and everyone else drifted in over the next twenty minutes and found their way to our table in a dim corner.

Overall, the dinner was nice and the conversation was okay. People mostly talked about their plans for the winter break; I am practically the only person not leaving the state to visit family. Yet, the part that has been bugging me ever since that night was the feeling like I did not fit in 100%. These students are a diverse group except in one regard--they all come from upper-middle-class backgrounds and have parents with advanced degrees. My background is consistently blue collar, and has been for several generations. Books learning was something to be suspicious of. (My grandfather likes to tell the story about how he quit the ninth grade because he did not want to do a book report. He never returned to school and joined the army instead.) Consequently, I did not have many ways to relate to my fellow students, except to ask if their papers were done, and how the weather was going to be where they were traveling. As you can see, we had scintillating conversation over over-priced spaghetti. (Please note the irony in the previous sentence.) It seemed most people were trying to vie for Martha's attention, or participate in the slightly bawdy conversation at the other end of the table. Whenever the woman directly across from me tried to engage me in conversation, I had the sense she was searching desperately for ways to force a topic of discussion. It seemed I wasn't an interesting enough person to talk to as much as I was a rather boring, slightly challenging, assignment.

I'm not sure why all of this has been pressing in my mind lately, except that I know it has something to do with my feelings toward grad. school. Everything is all jumbled together and I don't know what the connection is. Of course, I also don't want to overthink it either. Without delving too deep, I suspect that it has a bit to with competition. Directly confronted with fellow students having a good time at dinner, who have all the assignments completed, and who, while claiming to have had serious trouble with their assignments during different parts of the term, seem to have it together--the same way sports teams talk about a minor slip-up in the championship game they've won by a landslide.

This may be my last post for a week or more. I'm going on my winter vacation to the coast, where I hope to relax and prepare for the upcoming term. Even though it is cliche to say so, I'll be a little wiser and will have a better idea about what is involved to do well. God willing, it will be a great new start.

The Almost-Last Day

Today is the last official day of the term. The campus has largely emptied of students and faculty, and now is largely haunted by janitorial staff, student workers at the library trying not be bored, and more than a few overworked grad. students haggardly trudging through the darkened hallways of buildings that are the seat of their variously chosen fields. As I am the T.A. for an ENG104 class, I still have about twenty more exams to grade by Monday; Tuesday is the last day for the professor to submit grades. Thus, tomorrow morning, I will be making the trip back to the campus and my office to get them done. My office, a depressing yet workable space suffused with fluorescent light, is less depressing in the morning when there is more natural light. Also, as none of the other four people I share it will be working that day, I'll have it all to myself.

In a desperate frenzy of work (lamentably uncompleted), I have been able lucky enough to have a laptop checked out to me steadily for three days. Three days! Mind you, this is no small feat as one is allowed to check a laptop out only in four hour increments. Thus, I have been at the library checkout desk requesting to extend my time at least four times a day during the second half of the week, the last request for each day being an overnight checkout.

I'm dearly hoping that I'll be able to work out something over the winter break that will allow me to purchase a computer. Even if I lived on rice cakes for the rest of the year, sold my blood every day, and scrounged through all the cushions from all the couches I ever sat on for loose change, I still wouldn't have the money. My only hope is a financial aid program, which more and more seems like a tenuous gamble on my future, the bet being a PhD and a good job against a huge debt that is accumulating as I write these very words. After an essentially demoralizing term, this bet is seeming less like a sure thing.

Beside completing all of the unfinished work that I have to do over the break, I'm intending to spend a lot of time reflecting on what I can do differently to make the next term go much more smoothly. Obviously, the first lesson I learned the hard way is to start much more earlier on the term papers than I did. But, I'm sure there are other lessons that aren't as obvious and are going to take some exploration. Basically, I'm sure it all boils down to learning how to mush! A friend told me that what everyone should understand about grad. school is that on your first day, you're already four weeks behind. He's not kidding.

The Winds of Obsolescence

Most of the computers that I have been using on campus do not have a floppy drive, something that presents a real problem when I need to save my work for another day. In the past, I've e-mailed my assignments to myself through the internet, using internet mail as free storage device. Normally, this technique works pretty well, except I have to spend about five to ten minutes formatting my paper as the email systems not only take out bold, italics, and indentations, but do not even pretend to consider such things like margins or font. When you're an English major and are required to use strict MLA formatting, these picky things become important. While I may not remember the finer points of Husserl's concepts of phenomenology as it relates to criticism, I will always remember basic MLA formatting right until the day I, euphemistically speaking, slip from this mortal coil.

Consequently, I bought myself a jump drive aka flash drive, aka thumb drive, aka usb drive for forty bucks. Probably not a bargain, but a full twenty dollars cheaper than the college bookstore. When initially shopping around for a solution to my storage problem, I was confused by the constellation of names this thing had. (New technology has always had a problem with names, I suppose. Apparently, as a result of the invention of the telegraph and telegram, it was popular to refer to your autograph as an autogram. Not quite the same problem, but close enough to demonstrate the potential for confusion.) I call it a jump drive, as that is what it calls itself when it is plugged into a computer. Not wanting to be insensitive to my drive's preferences, I stick with jump drive.

Actually, I've had the drive for a couple of weeks now, but because my home computer is lamentably obsolete, I wasn't able to use it properly until today. Now, I have a sense of freedom that comes with the knowledge that I will not be subject to an internet connection for the retrieval of my papers. I know this is not a major milestone for most people, yet I humbly give thanks to all that is holy for this small grace proffered by the wizards of technology.

School and the Beach

After my last post, this one will probably seem anti-climatic. Suffice it to say, while I've not completely conquered all of the problems that currently beset me, I'm in much better shape than I was. I have until the end of the week to finish a paper that has been dogging me for far too long. I've got a decent start on it, so if I can finish it and earn a good grade--and I've been pleading with everything holy that I can--then I will have survived my first term of graduate school. One of the things that has been relatively easy to do has been reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez for the ENG104 class that I'm a teaching assistant for. It's nice not to worry (or read) about high literary theory for awhile and just enjoy something good to read.

Yet, despite the implication given from my last few blogs, I do have a life outside of school. And, no, I'm not talking about the too much television I've watched over the last two weeks. I'm planning to go to the beach over the winter break. I love visiting the beach during the off season when everything is gray and raining. There are hardly ever any people around this time of year, except when it gets a little closer to Christmas. For some reason, a select group of people love to celebrate the holiday at the coast. As for myself, I'm going to enjoy the atmosphere and the rest. I plan to make a couple of fires right on the beach, and maybe I'll even try to hike a little.

Weeks of Change

I imagine that one day I will look back on this period of my life and recognize it as one of the handful times, less than five or six, where the decisions I have made have significantly shaped my future. I'n twenty five years or so, I'm sure I will have forgotten about this blog, I will not remember my address at the apartment where I currently live, but I will remember these last few weeks as one of my lowest ebbs, the consequences of which will last for a long time.

I apologize if this sounds a little dramatic; it's not meant to be. It's my way of verbalizing a recognition I've been slowing coming to for the last couple of weeks. I'm sure that I'll overcome these present difficulties eventually. The next two weeks will be pivotal.

The Horror

The first major part of my assignment is complete, but only twenty nine pages later. (I managed to turn it at the last possible minute, just barely). Never have I written anything so long in my entire life, never have I come so close to cursing out my computer printer to verbal oblivion, or been so close to moving deep into the woods to spend the rest of my word-wearied-life living at the top of large fir tree with my imaginary animal-friend Bob, the blue budgie. Like Mr. Kurtz in Conrad's story, I came this close to the edge and saw "the horror--the horror."

Of course, it's not yet over, I still have the second part of the assignment to write. After a few days of Thanksgiving holiday stuffing myself with turkey, I'm hoping that I've replenished the mental and physical capacity to handle it. Tomorrow will be a full day of work, from early morning to late night (possibly early morning again). I'm hoping the second part will come easy, but I'm trying not to be delusional. Blog entries may be sparse again for next couple of weeks.

The 8-Ball Blues

No, I haven't disappeared; I've been really busy, and okay, I'll admit it, a little depressed. The main reason for the blues, but not the only one, is that I've missed some real important due dates for the work that is currently on-going. And, as these things somehow always tend to coalesce into a personal fiasco, much like a tornado that spins everything into a blustery chaos, I've been taking the edge off these blues by watching television--precisely the absolute wrong thing to do with work pressing. As I say, a fiasco. Still, there's hope; I'll admit that too.

This certainly has been an interesting first term. While I'm usually not one to make predictions, a lesson I learned early on from the magic eight ball (After all, there's a reason why it's an eight ball and not, say, an eleven), I think the next term will go much more smoothly. I continue to hope so anyway.

Mental machinery

None of the gears in my brain appear to be willingly turning for me at the moment, and, thus, it is a challenge to think straight for more than few minutes at a time. Of course, I've no-one to blame for this condition except myself. You see, I only had two hours sleep last night because I absolutely had to have all of the ENG104 essays that have been oppresses my spirit for the past two weeks graded by this morning--which, fortunately, they were all graded by 5:00 a.m. However, I was only able to nap for two hours before going to that same class to hand them out.

Recently, I spoke with a friend, someone who has been through the grad. school experience, who told me that thing that you need to know is this: "On your very first day of class, you're already four weeks behind." That sums up my experience these last eight weeks rather well. The instructor for ENG104, who is very sympathetic and treats me and the other T.A. as (pseudo) colleagues, says that the work never really lets up the whole time you're in grad. school; the trick is to not stress out too much about it, and to try and do all of the work as it comes to you.

Since grading essays no longer burdens me, I can now focus my attention on the seminar paper that I need to have written by this Wednesday. So, it's back to the mind factory to browbeat masses of my brain cell into producing more thought from increasingly worn out mental machinery. C'est la vie!

Scholar Squalor

Alas, the work continues, and like the famous Frost poem, "I've miles to go before I sleep." Fortunately, one of the things that is helping me get a handle on the work is my discovery of the laptop loan program operated by the University's library. As a result of easier computing, Zhaf and his Cellar has a little more portability. Now, I can write and read from the comfort of my best study spot -- my own couch.

My main project continues to be the seminar paper that wil will be due in a couple scant weeks. I've not started writing it, but it is becoming clearer as a result of the research that I've been doing. Essentially, I'm trying to combine Mikhail Bakhtin's perspective of narrative discourse on a Tim O'Brien short story in his work "The Things They Carried." At this point, a reference to the Simpson's might be instructive.

Groundskeeper Willy: Hie ye hence from me heath!

Bart: Huh?

Groundskeeper Willy: What a'matter! Can't you understand English?

Like Bart, I'm still struggling to understand some of the jargon and terminology that is often used in academic writing. Even though it appears to be English, I begin to have my doubts. When Derrida writes about the "Heidegerrean destruction of meta-physics, of onto-theology, of the determination of Being as presence," I feel as if my head will explode. When De Man, trying to employ and Archie Bunker analogy (really, no kidding) writes, "it is a de-bunker rather than a 'Bunker,' and a de-bunker of the arche (or orgin), an archie Debunker such as Nietzche or Jaques Derrida for instance, who asks the question 'What is the Difference'," I feel as if I have completely slipped off the edge of the Earth and am spinning through a cold and inky space towards the twisting red eye of Jupiter.

The Burning Monster

This is the rare Saturday blog, partly inspired by helpless frustration that my homework is not progressing more quickly than I thought, complemented with a little burnout on the side. It's been difficult to focus properly on the reading I need to focus on. Combine that with the feathered darkness of isolation brought about as a result of ceaseless graduate study.

My mind leaps at any opportunity to escape from the topic at hand, and the corresponding icy absence of concentration leaks down my spine and burns quietly in my back; therefore, it's hard to sit still because the mild pain sitting there laughingly pushes me against the weak hope that I'll stay and work in my office, rather than melt willingly into the cold bathing blue gaze of the television at home.

Despite my cherished belief that this work will get done by Monday morning, I feel a rising fear and anxiety that it will not be completed by then, or by the following day either. This is my monster, a Grendel to my Beowulf, and I fear that, unlike the Northern King, I'll not be able to defeat it. How quickly has yesterday's small triumph of having a working car already been evaporated.

Donut Diner

Finally, after gingerly crawling around town in my car, afraid it might expire at some inopportune time or place, I had my car looked at by a professional. The problem was -- happily -- an easy fix that they decided not to charge me for: that's right, free! Therefore, I figured that I should have my transmission tuned up at their business when winter break arrives, and I've a break from the piling work. The relief knowing that my car will not spontaneously kick the proverbial bucket has been positively immeasurable.

Yet, the transmission people needed a lot of time to look at my car and diagnose the problem. Therefore, I decided that I would walk the couple of blocks through the afternoon city to a small donut and coffee shop, and like a worried father, fret over the car while I did homework. The shop itself really is unassuming. The outside of it is dingy and grey, the inside is not much better with formica tables and harsh flourescent lights. However, I quickly discovered that the shop was a favorite hangout for people over the age of fifty. Many of the customers who came in seemed to know everything about the people behind the counter, and spent at least five minutes talking with them before they ordered anything. The analogy that seemed to fit was that this place is a teenage burger joint for retired, or near-retired, people. I felt extremely out of place, as the other patrons took turns taking silent note of me and what I was doing. Photographs taped to the wall near my table portrayed a group of the same people chatting it up at the very table I was occupying. Good Lord, I thought, I'm an invader.

The only other time I had this sort of feeling was, while on a brief vacation in New York City, a friend of mine and I decided to get hamburgers at 2:00 a.m. We figured that a particular Lebanese restaurant was our best bet. The shocked stares we got the moment we walked in was not unlike the hush that falls over a saloon when either the Sheriff or Bad Guys kick their way through the swinging doors in a Hollywood western. Eating there was probably not the best decision we ever made, but the experience was something we are not likely to forget anytime soon. Similarly, while I'm not sure I go back this dilapidated donut hovel, the feeling that I've somehow discovered the hidden hangout for the over fifty crowd is likely to leave an impression for at least few weeks.

Ned and hubcaps

Last night, after a detour to the grocery store to restock my perpetually empty fridge with food, I pulled into my apartment's parking lot to find that someone had rather ungraciously parked in my assigned space, space number five. Parking has always been an issue with me, especially considering that spaces are limited and that, while I know I'm burning up the world's limited supply of dinosaurs and fossilized plants, I really need a car to get around. This intruder in my space irked me. The irritation was multiplied by the fact that empty visitor spaces are available just a couple hundred yards away. So, being a nice guy, I left a short note under the interloper's windshield saying: "Please do not park here as it is my assigned space. Thank you."

However, after thinking about it, I realized that wasn't the note I really wanted to write. Not being practiced with confrontation, I initially figured that being brief would communicate my desire with as little chance possible of the stranger getting inordinately upset. (I make it policy not to upset strangers as you never know who is itching to return their cramped cell at the state bighouse.) The note I wanted to write is as follows:

---

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand how difficult parking can be here in this lot, especially as space is limited. No-one understands the difficulty of parking a vehicle relatively close to where you need to do business, attend school, or just visit others more than I. It simply is not fair to decent law abiding car owners not to have safe space to leave their vehicle. If I were mayor, it would be mandatory for the city to have large parking garages built every five blocks, radiating from the city center.

However, that understood, if you ever park here again -- so help me, I'll train that dirty drowned river-rat-looking nutria [Ned from the earlier blog entry] to crawl out of that diseased infested mud pile they call a creek and pee all over your hubcaps.

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.

Sand and stress

My grandiose plans to study hard over the weekend have evaporated like cool spring water in the Mojave desert. The result of not studying has been that I'm even further behind than I was and am now confronted with mounting stress, piled like numerous grains of sand in so many dunes of the aforementioned desert -- all of which brings me to my car.

Not being very mechanically inclined, I'll employ a metaphor that compares my car to an elderly person to describe the problem. Essentially, my car fractured a hip. While still able to move about, the car needs to see a professional, either today or tomorrow. I've been reluctantly forced to realize the car's eventual mortality. Although I can use the local bus system in emergencies, car trouble will severely restrict my mobility. Whether or not this episode is the beginning of the end remains to be seen; but once again, you'll note, the theme here is stress.

I figure I should take a lesson from Ned. Ned is the name that I've given to the nutria I mentioned a few entries back. Apparently, the acorn tree in front of my mailbox is his favorite dining establishment/night club. When I collect my mail at 11:00 p.m. or later, he seems to always be calm and unperturbed, even as I'm trying to dance away from him, lest he prove me wrong. Still his serenity, transcendental in a mystical way, gives me hope that I, too, will somehow find a way through this improbable work-mountain

Study Blizzard

The illness has finally left, to which I can actually breathe a healthy sigh of relief. Perhaps the release from the stress of writing my graduate paper, a paper that nearly made me crazy and one which I would very much like to earn a decent grade for, might have given me the respite I needed to kick the lingering effects of my personal health disaster. Now I have the ability, once again, to arise from my couch, my usual place of study, without the room hysterically laughing at me as it spins in every direction at once.

So with my newly restored health I've resolved to study like I have never done before -- to study like the wind! Well, okay, not like the wind exactly, but certainly I need to figure out how to organize my time and study much more effectively; I constantly have to resist the ever-alluring pull of doing something else entertaining. My next project involves writing a 15-40 page annotated working bibliography for a 15 page seminar paper due in five weeks. Already, I am a little behind -- and with the essays I received today from the class I T.A. for, essays which need to be graded, I'm dangerously close to falling even further behind. Hence, one can see the obvious necessity of developing the steely resolve to avoid extraneous activities (like buying food, washing clothes, paying the bills.) So adopting the motto of a championship sled dog: it's time to mush.

Illness and Discontent

Grappling with an illness, likely brought about by the stress of working on my paper, I've found it hard to motivate myself forward to fling myself towards even more study and more books. I've not worked quite this hard and had so little to show for it in the results department for some time. Frankly, when I hear someone talk about the deconstructive imperatives influencing the grand narratives of centered discourse, it's hard not to feel slightly demoralized. Okay, sure -- I do spend more time watching television than I should, but I'm an American, right? Television is practically an inalienable right. I've briefly spoken with an instructor about feeling like I'm somehow, not just in the wrong place, but in the completely wrong dimension. The reassurance I received was, of course, reassuring, but just a little. The instructor suggested that it may take a whole year before I feel like I have a strong grasp of the process. Good Lord, I hope not.

Under the Hammer

As far as the English 104 class that I T.A. for, I've definitely settled into a routine: park my car, walk across the freezing cold campus for fifteen minutes to get to class, wonder when the squirrels will begin to hibernate, listen to the lecture, try to inspire small group discussions when appropriate, and check in with the instructor after class. It seems that the biggest challenge has been the grading; and as far as that is concerned, I'm getting a better handle on the types of things that the instructor expects. The only potential snag on the horizon are the upcoming essays that all the students should be diligently working on. (Hah!)

Of course, with my own experience as a guide, I know for a fact that 98% of the students will wait until the night before. I myself have a paper that is due tomorrow that, while I have done the research ahead of time, I haven't begun to write yet. I'll spend the better part of today and early tomorrow writing it, so there'll likely not be blog entries for a day or two. Even though I know better, and despite constantly hear the same advice from every English teacher I've ever met (including fellow grad. students), I should have started writing my paper a couple of weeks ago. Old habits are hard to break.

But, applying some perspective, I should say that it is not all that bad. I do revise my papers after drafting them, and I have actually done some free writing about my topic already. So, if trends continue, I'll eventually get to where I want to be, but let's hope that's not after I've already graduated.

Nutrias and Monkeys

Last night, after completing a small chunk of the work that had been oppressing me for the last several days, I drove home on fairly empty streets, pulled into the darkened parking lot in my humble corner of student housing, and, once out of my car, walked over to the depressing metal boxes underneath an acorn tree to uncage my mail for the day. In spite of the late hour, there was another person standing nearby looking at what I assumed was his mail.

"Excuse me," the person asked me. He had an accent, so I immediately assumed that he was an international student from an Asian country, perhaps China. "Do you know what kind of animal this is?" He pointed down at large rodent timidly staring at the both of us, shuffling his webbed feet around some loose acorns. The creature's eyes were translucently reflecting a hazy light from a street lamp somewhere.

"Oh," I said, briefly startled, "That is a nutria." The creature was slowly backing up into some hedges, presumably to find a switchblade or some other kind of blade to defend itself with.

"Nyootria," the man repeated, "It looks like a big rat."

"Yeah, they're rodents all right. Way back when, some guy figured that he could sell them for fur, but when nobody bought any, they were released into the wild some time in the thirties. It probably lives in the creek behind this building." The international student was looking at the creature with an intense and interested fascination. I supposed he was wondering if it was dangerous, a thought that amused me.

My personal policy with these sorts of creatures - nutria or raccoons - is to treat them like bees: keep your distance and ignore them. It is extremely unlikely that they'll harm you. Even if, like raccoons, they stand up on their hind legs and menacingly wave their arms at you in a "wax-on wax-off" Karate Kid sort of way. (My younger sister uttered the loudest, most shrill scream I've ever heard in my life when a raccoon actually did just that.) Still, I wondered if the situation was reversed and I was the international student living in China, would have a similar reaction to, say, a monkey? Probably. Although, I think my worry would be more justified; afterall, a monkey might actually have a switchblade hidden somewhere. And I am unused to brawling with monkeys.

Baa!

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Holiday Harmonium

Yesterday, in spite of recovering from my cold, I climbed four flights of stairs to get to my office. I should have waited for the elevator, but there was an insane amount of people waiting for it, the elevator was taking forever to open up, and I had an attack of conscience based on the realization that I potentially might infect 10 other people with the health equivalent of a mugging and an atom bomb rolled into one.

Taking the stairs is normally nothing worth noting, but in this case it was different. A handsome middle-aged woman was sitting in a chair on the third floor stairwell playing Jingle Bells on an accordion. Another man, with a slouched hat and a beard, sat opposite her, listening and making notes in a book. I did what most people would have done when confronted with an unusual scene involving an accordion: I pretended not to see it and walked silently by. I know that in some cities, this sort of thing would not be too unusual, but for me, it was definitely out of the ordinary.

Doughnuts of Comfort

The cold I had mentioned in the previous blog blew up into a full fledged affair that wiped me out for most of the weekend, so despite a monkey-barrel full of good intentions, I accomplished almost nothing except bed rest. And, unfortunately, I'm still not completely well. All of which made for a somewhat amusing fire inspection this morning. Since I live in off-campus housing at a public university, and since that university receives government money, the tenants are subject to routine inspections to ensure that the smoke detectors will detect smoke and that some college student - emulating a grizzly bear - hasn't demolished government issue carpeting or ignored mold silently breeding in the sink.

This cold, with it's ironic fevers, comes at time when I thought I was getting healthier, or at least not doing as much damage as usual with a burger laden diet and practically no exercise. I've even joined a health club - not to lose weight, but to feel better physically. The tragedy of getting older is realizing that you are no exception to health maintenance, that your body is just as prone to limitations as someone else, and that too many doughnuts of comfort - bathed in the buttery goodness of a sweet, sweet glaze - will easily transform themselves into an elephant sized arterial clog that mockingly laughs at you as you feel the first sledge hammer pound of an early heart attack.

HTML Bumpers

One of the things that has been nagging at me for the last several days has been the general design of my site. When I initially created it, I took a little knowledge of HTML, an old blogger template, and combined it with the spirit of tinkering. I didn't really change the blog template so much as shifted it a certain way and tacked on a bunch of links. Afterwards, if I discovered something I liked, I tacked it on in pretty much the same way that I have tacked everything else on. So, even in spite of all the work that I have been griping about for the last several weeks, I'm thinking about pushing my web skills a little further and doing something a bit different. The holy grail of doing something different would be finding a host for some images, but that eventuality is at the end of a long line of school work and bills that keep getting in the way.

On a personal front, while fighting off a cold I've recently required - which was probably exacerbated by the fact that I was up until 2:00 a.m. grading essays for ENG104 - I'm finding that I'm coping with a general malaise that is brought on by something much deeper than the usual schoolwork. Unfortunately, although I have my theories, I'm not one hundred percent sure what the matter is. Consequently, I blew about five bucks in a Simpsons pinball machine at the student union. So long as I don't make it habit, I think it could be a good way to decompress now and again.

Electric Caveman

Despite my occasional forays into the world of computer technology, I essentially remain bereft of the true graces that sing enchantingly electronic melodies from the elysian fields of circuitry. Briefly, I've recently discovered that my home computer is infected with a virus (link goes to a description at Symantec), and I'm still not sure how to remove it safely without messing up all of my other files. Of course, it is a fair question to ask what sort of impact that this has one me. The inevitable answer is - not much. Although I have used a computer for one reason or another almost every day (like most students), the computers I consistently use are firmly parked in a dank cellar-like computer lab. My skin has become luminescent by being constantly bathed in the soft blue glow of an electric screen. My own home computer has been laughably obsolete for awhile. And the computer previous to that was truly antique; the tech-support for it was an actual Neanderthal and the monitor was carved from stone, which isn't metaphor. Seriously. One of the computer's input devices was a large wooden club. All of the computers I have ever owned have been acquired second-hand.

Yet, there may be hope. Since another one of my hobbies besides blogging has been accumulating an obscene amount of college loan debt, I have discovered that there is a way to combine my talent for expanding debt and my desire to buy a computer (laptop). Apparently, the financial aid office will approve a one time extension for me to buy one. Once I finish shopping around for the best price, getting official price quotes, and filling out the paperwork, I should be well into final exam week, which - of course - will not be of much use for fall term. Life is full of ridiculous ironies. But maybe, just maybe, I'll have one for winter. And this time, I keep my virus software updated.

Vietnam Generation

Today, I finished reading Tim O'Brien's book, The Things They Carried, and not just the short story by the same name that is frequently anthologized. I finished the last story in an overhot, muggy, solarium attached to the student union cafeteria; even though the food was somewhat bland, which I suppose is typical of most cafeterias, I was engrossed in the story.

I am not one of those people fascinated by the machismo of war, or the amped up conceptions of manliness that frequently go with it. When I worked at a printed circuit board factory, a coworker encouraged me to sign up with the National Guard saying it was "just like camp, only you get to blow up stuff." He told me how he and fellow soldiers blew a large crater into one of our national forests by using a little too much C4 to clear out a dead and fallen over log. I forget what the purpose of clearing out the logs were, but I wonder if he still thinks the National Guard is like camp because, almost assuredly, he is currently on duty in Iraq.

The fascination for me comes from two places: first, the (unwilling) extreme experience of pain and terror, and the various ways that are developed to cope with that, and second, the connection of the Vietnam War and my parent's generation. The War has significantly shaped them, but in ways - while I can feel - I don't really understand.

Stolen Soda

For my grad. studies class, I will begin writing the required abstract, and so doing, begin the process of writing my first seminar paper. Never having written one, the prospect of this new task - combined with grading papers while trying to sort out just what the other grad. students and professors are talking about in classes - looms before me omniously.

The looming is not unlike the looming of a unbalanced soda machine slowing falling towards you in your effort to procure a a stolen beverage. While I assure you that I would never try to satisfy my thirst in such a dangerous manner, the squashing metaphor by a half ton machine seems rather apt when compared to the process of writing my first grad. paper.

I still feel on top of things for the most part - after all, I have managed to keep myself fed and clothed and whatnot, but I find that my free time is vanishing in increasingly larger increments. There is an adjustment between grad. and undergrad. work. While I could usually slide through a ten week undergrad course by missing a few classes here and there, and by blowing off the occasional homework, here sliding is definitely not an option. I've also had to continually confront the question (usually in the morning): is this the right path for me? While I'm fairly certain the answer is still yes, the realization that this is the true beginning of future job has been sobering. I had hoped that all of my sobering realizations would have already happened by now.

Afflicted River

Over the weekend, I saw the movie Mystic River. I have to agree with all of the critics that Sean Penn did a real good job acting the role of a lost lower class father trying to cope with the murder of his daughter. On the other hand, after hearing Tim Robbins discuss the film on television, I was expecting an extended meditation on what it means to be male (different from the kind that society usually demands), and how to cope with that. At many points, aside from a rather brutal scene of violence (not the murder), this a police drama. I feel Affliction, with Nick Nolte, is a rather good film that explores the issue of violence and what it means to be male rather well. It is based on a book by Russell Banks that I haven't read yet. So, I'm focusing purely on content here. While the technical movie magic that Affliction employed may not be the same quality as Mystic River, I felt the story was pretty good.

Downpours

The winter rain has arrived and proceeded to soak everything with its usual aplomb. While walking to class this morning, I was wondering how the local population of squirrels keeps from drowning in their burrows, or at least from going (ahem) nuts. The other TA for the class says that she was almost run over while cycling to school, and I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that this has been the first real rain of the season. It has also surprised me a little to see everyone with umbrellas. Living through the winters here for so long has made see umbrellas as something approaching a gesture of futility.

My main project continues to be grading the quizzes; I'm still trying to figure how to be consistent and give an appropriate grade. Of course being just the TA, there is an added pressure of trying to figure out the grade the Professor would give, not just the grade I would, and figuring out how to align the two. But of course, there are the articles to read for the seminar, so I off to entomb myself in either my shared office or the library, where I will slowly moulder in the sickly light of the florouscent bulbs burning above my head. To sum up in one word, Ack!

Lifting Fog

Now that I've had a full two and a half weeks here at grad. school, things, although still a little incomprehensible at times, are beginning to fall into place. My personal life continues to be an unrepentant disaster, but my professional life seems to be starting. I can now navigate my way confidently through all of the tasks that seem to be required of me so far, and I have been talking with some of the other grad. students who feel a little like I do. Now that the basic fog of "how do I fit in this place," has begun to lift, I now have to focus seriously on my studies. My grades, while good in an average sort of way, have to be brought up; and to successfully do that, I have to begin both of my seminar papers very soon. The problem is, of course, that I have to write about something that I still don't quite understand, but at least I have a good idea of where I should start.

Life in the Slow Lane

Today was the first day that the class for which I am the TA had a quiz. It was interesting insofar as I got to see the reactions of the students taking the quiz, to listen to their pleas for more time, and - after the quiz was over - to downplay the overworry expressed those students who should have no reason to worry. Of course, I've seen this all before when I myself had taken quizzes in my undergraduate classes, but this was different for two reasons. The first is the mere fact that it has been some time since I have been in one hundred level class, so the reactions were a little different from those I remember as a senior. The second reason is, since I'm a TA, my perspective has shifted slightly from student to someone who will one day (inshallah) be an instructor. This prospective role is highlighted by the mere fact that I will be grading about a third of these quizzes, so the students who sighed heavily when they were forced to relinquish their papers will have me as their quiz evaluator.

Yet, with the exception of this one hundred level class, the analogy that seems to characterize my efforts here at grad. school is this: I am the old man in the hat driving the late-model buick in the slow lane of the freeway. It seems everyone else is passing me on the right and giving me the proverbial finger, while I'm crankily asking myself if I have stopped despite the seeming forward movement. My weekend is up in the air because of the necessity to study, but I think I'm going to schedule enough time off to see a movie. I believe I might see Mystic River because it sounds like it could be really interesting. I would have seen "Kill Bill," but David Denby of the New Yorker has said that "'Kill Bill' is what’s formally known as decadence and commonly known as crap." Ouch. Let's just say if I ever make a movie, I hope that Mr. Denby doesn't see it.

The Sac of Suds

I've overcome the whole issue about defining the word rhetoric by side-stepping the issue altogether. My new assignment is to give a ten minute presentation and 5 page paper on Literary History. Of course, this puts me right back at square one, but I think that I'm slowly getting a handle on the type of academic rigor that is required to do well. The professor has reassured me that the students who seem talkative and confident have some experience with graduate work before, so by extension, I should not feel so out of the loop or intimidated. Still, I can't help but feel a little nervous and a bit behind everyone else. More study on my part is needed, and as a consequence, my life is about to get more regimented.

Let there be no misunderstanding, the adjustment to grad. school has been, for me, inordinately difficult. And, dovetailing rather nicely with this difficult adjustment, my personal affairs have stumbled beyond my control into anarchy. Since it is fall, and I live in the northwest, there has been plenty of rain to complement my mood. Yet, the key to not letting it overwhelm me has been my trying to keep a sense of humor. I'll not explain how or why, but a particular scene from the movie My Cousin Vinny has helped me maintain some balance. I've found I can relieve some pressure by maintaining perspective. Thus life continues. Tonight, I immerse myself back into study, and tomorrow I buy some small things for my office.

Rhetoric

Lately, I've had such a hard time figuring out what to write and how to write it that I'm now (of course) paralyzed with writers block. I haven't posted to the cellar here for some time, at least not as often as I had originally hoped, and I haven't made much progress on the assignment that has been blighting all of my thoughts and free time lately.

What is the assignment you may ask? Define the term rhetoric (5 pages) and give a ten minute presentation on the term to your fellow students. The problem stems from the fact that I'm not sure exactly what the specifications are for academic writing, meaning should I ramble on in my introduction about something that is only tangentially related to the topic at hand, and I'm not as excited about the topic as I should be. If I were more interested in reading articles that have all of the pleasant, end-of-meal satisfaction as a box of sawdust, then I'd be laughing because the paper would have alreay been completed. So, while I have finally tranferred all of my belongings to my new place of residence as of this last weekend, I can't exactly relax and spend a few minutes wacthing television because of my looming assignment. Your guess is as good as mine concerning what will happen tomorrow in class.

Kidneys

Today has been about as productive as I can make it, although I do intend to study my brains out this evening. I'm telling everyone that if this was a reality television show, I would have been voted off the island by about 3:00 p.m. today. The positive things I've accomplished have been that I've finally found out where the computer lab for the GTF's are, the discovering of which was not unlike finding secret elephant burial grounds. I also signed up for medical insurance through the union; so, I can be really sick now without worrying about dying outright from what health professionals usually term "lack of care." Cultivating a continuing taste for the surreal, I had the following conversation with the union rep. She mentioned that I needed to sign the "transplant form" that covered 24 months of something. I hadn't heard what she said so I asked what the form was about:

She: "This just means that you can't get a transplant for two years, if it is pre-existing condition."

Me: "So, if I need a kidney - then, I'm out of luck."

She: "Yes, if the reason you needed one was pre-existing. But, if you needed one a week from now."

Me: "Like if I were stabbed in the small of the back or something, and the blade punctured a kidney, then. . ."

She: "Then you could get a kidney no problem."

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been so creepy, but the above conversation actually helped me figure out that they were denying transplants outright in every circumstance. I guess it's my lower class upbringing that inspires me to say stuff like this and not think about how it might sound until later.

On a final note, some of the computers here at the University do not have 3.5 disk drives anymore. Nor do they have a server (at least I don't think they do) where students can save their work to access later. So what the hell am I supposed to do? The answer apparently is I should buy a jump drive, aka a flash drive or thumb drive(?), that I carry around with me in order to save my work on that. Of course, they sell them at the bookstore for small fee. Although I'm not afraid of new technology, I hate to be forced to buy stuff like this when I'm not really prepared for it.

The Storm Again

Even after attending my second class as a teaching assistant (T.A.), I'm still not sure what being a T.A. is going to entail. I suspect once I've had a chance to talk in depth with the instructor, rather than just chat for the few minutes before and after class, I'll be helping out with the minor computer related tasks and offering the usual tips and tricks one needs when geeking out on the web. By absolutely no means am I some kind of techie or web wizard (some of the incoming freshman already know more about that sort of thing than I ever will). Still, I think that I have more tech. and geek savvy than the other teaching assistant and instructor put together. (When I first met with the instructor in her fourth floor office to check-in with her the week before class, she showed me the syllabus and indicated that she was experiencing some trouble removing the hyperlink from her Microsoft word document. She told me, "I'll put a copy [of the syllabus] in your mailbox after I fix this email address so it's not blue. I'm hoping the photocopier will make it black again." Super simple stuff. I kept my mouth shut at the time figuring that silence was golden and that I needed to hear more about my job than explain the mysteries of hyperlinks.)

As for the graduate courses, I must admit to feeling more than my share of trepidation about the amount of work required and the intellectual capacity that I will need to have to immerse myself fully and successfully as a grad. student. I spent this whole afternoon reading an academic article about the history of rhetoric, something I need to do in order to write a paper about it for next week. I have to say the article was about as clear as mud. (If I had to summarize it in a few words, the article was essentially saying: Yep, rhetoric sure causes a heap o' fuss. Even way back a'fore anyone can re-collect, some folks has liked it, and some don't. No use trying to stop all this feudin' and a fussin', so best-of-luck to the poor fool who has to pick a side. Which, by the way, that fool is you!)

The stress of still not being completely moved dovetailed rather nicely with the stress of school and has made me (look out: understatement ahead!) a little frazzled. I don't have a phone; I haven't changed my address yet; and I've not even told some of my long time friends exactly where the hell I am. (Metaphorically speaking, I guess I don't know where the hell I am either.) This Friday, I'll be back in my old town packing the smaller things I left behind and tying up the financial loose ends. Those older and wiser than myself have suggested that I tell myself that everything will work out, and, they say, I should keep telling myself that. Advice I interpret as: Fake it 'till you make it. I don't know if I buy this argument, but right now, it's the only real advice about my situation I've got.

The Storm

I have now been to all of the classes that I'm going to have this term. I knew I was griping before about the amount of work that I was going to have to do with packing and moving and all, but I guess I didn't realize just how busy I would be with the minutiae attendant with school and school preparation. I'd talk more now, but I have to be at class in fifteen minutes, and I need to hurry.

The Calm

This is the last weekday before classes, and now I'm about to check on the apartment that I'm going to be living in for the next two years. (When I arranged to "check-in" a couple of days ago, the student employee in the apartment office said to a fellow employee that she wondered if it would be ready for the 26th. Since it is a small office, I happened to overhear.) I'm hoping that there will not be any kind of problem, especially seeing as how I have friends and family coming from Big City to help me pack. This weekend is my planned day to move. Here's hoping everything works out because Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. I officially kick off my graduate career.

Dickinson and Deadlines

Today has been at least as busy as yesterday, and with my planned trip to Big City tonight, the day is about to get a lot busier. I still haven't finished packing, but that has dropped to my second or third priority. I'm hoping that I'll be able to rope friends and family into insanity known as packing. The main project, the one that has consumed most of the energy I regularly devote to worrying, concerns a 3-5 page paper that I'll have to write by 2:00 p.m. Tuesday concerning my choice of one of five given poems by Emily Dickinson. I also have to figure out what classes I'm going to registering for by tomorrow. The meeting I had with my graduate advisor cleared up some problems, but now that I have a clearer idea of what I'm doing, it has created new ones. I hope I don't forget anything.

Discombobulatory

Alas, here it is Wednesday and I haven't made many posts here in the cellar lately. However, I expect that to change somewhat now that I'm in school again and have more regular access to a computer.

I must say that the last few days at my new grad. school have been nothing short of bewildering. Among the many academic requirements to remember, the forms to fill out, the professors to meet, and the meetings to attend (there's a composition conference that's currently in session), I am still just figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing at any given moment and how I'm going to move this weekend. It has been a struggle. Many of my things remain unpacked. In true college student fashion, I intend to throw out most of what I can. Rather than receive the general and congenial welcome that I had initially expected, especially considering the apparently misleading term of "welcome week," I now feel that the experience can be summarized as "sink or swim." I've only been keeping my head above water for the last few days.

Closer Inspection

I forgot to mention the other day that, among my adventures in travel, I took the greyhound bus from the Big City back to my small home town. The reason for this was my car needed extensive repairs despite my need to be elsewhere; so while the car got what it needed, I did too. And earlier I had already mentioned that I was pulled aside in John Wayne Airport so a security person could wave a wand over my body, not to find contraband or explosives so much as to alert half of the people in the airport to begin staring at me with wide-eyed suspicion. "Lookit here folks," the arm waving seemed to say, "this here is not just your average scruffy looking guy, he just might be a genuine scary person. Be sure to keep an eye on him in the plane." Again, decidedly not a terrorist, I took it all in stride and good humor. After all, I want to be as safe as the next person, yet I think that they could figure out a way to examine people in this manner more discreetly. I imagine that if I had the slightest tint of color to my skin, the experience would have been decisively unpleasant rather than mildly amusing.

The experience was again repeated at the bus station, but with a twist. This time, rather than single me out, the security personnel examined everyone in this way. On my earlier bus trip a week before, there was no examination at all - the bus driver didn't even sell me a ticket, he said that I could pay for it once I arrived in Big City. If I had been more daring and less conscientious, I might have gotten away without paying at all. (Although, being a classic good guy, I paid in full.) While I was able to carry my small pocket knife with me on the first trip, the security personnel took it away from me on my second. It irks me a little, even though they did offer to ship it to me for about two dollars; of course, only after I was already in line.

I can't help but think that there are some class issues at work here. Bus travel, the mode of transportation for the very poor, seems to require (at least occasionally) inspections of everyone. I know that the buzzer for the airport metal detector went off when I walked through it, still I have yet to see a "business man" being examined like I had been. Maybe I would have to travel a lot more to see that happen, or maybe those business guys are incredibly careful about what they carry, still I can't help feel a little singled out as individual at the airport and then singled out as a class member at the bus station.

Bemused in California

So ends my trip to southern California - Orange County to be exact. I must admit, having lived in the Pacific northwest for several years, there are some differences I noted, the biggest of which is the amount of water people use considering the inescapable fact that the place is geographically a desert. Almost every home I saw from the plane has a pool, and a nice one too.

(Speaking of the plane, I was only pulled aside once to have the security personnel examine everything in my carry-on and then promptly parade me through to a special area where they used "shoe sniffers" and their "magic detector wand" to. . . well, I'll just leave to rest to your imagination. Needless to say, although I might look scruffy and disheveled for a man of thirtysomething, I'm decidedly not a terrorist.)

One of the places we visited, besides seeing relatives, was Knotts Berry Farm. Overall, I must admit to liking the place, especially since we got in for half price; and as it was the off season, there were absolutely no lines. My favorite ride was the log ride and one of the roller coasters, but every ride is way too short which I guess is the price for being extremely popular. The apparent emphasis is to get as many people through the ride as quickly as possible.

There is a western theme to a large part of the park, and "the mystery lodge" ride is offensive in that it appears to make the indigenous people of the northwest coast of north america both an entertainment and a exhibit, which theoretically could work I suppose, but the tone was all wrong and the "makeup" for the main performer was horrible. It presents a people as a spectacle, almost as if they were zoo animals.

There is much more to tell, but time is still short, and I still have to move. I need to pack, change my address, and all of that. I did it for my girlfriend about a month ago. Now I need to do it for myself.

Abandonment

It has been awhile, so I figured that I should post something to explain how I haven't abandoned my blog. I still intend to keep it updated, but I've got some big plans over the next couple of weeks: moving, a week long trip to California, and starting grad. school. Therefore, if you don't see any posts, it doesn' mean that there won't be any in the future. Again, there are several things that have happened that are worth writing about, but I can't fit them in here now with the time available.

Kaboom!

After spending a night sleeping on the couch and waking up this morning, I spent a couple of hours wasting time watching the movie "Airport," and then "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," a film directed by Terry Gilliam. I confess to liking both of them, each a little campy, but especially the second. Gilliam is a true visual artist, whereas most other directors have become mere marketers selling a product they themselves don't believe in.

As I get older, the type of movies that exicted me before are having less of an impact. Action movies like Highlander and The Terminator were among my favorites, something I now chalk up to aggressive teenage hormones. I've significantly mellowed, so while I still can enjoy a post-apocalyptic action fest on a certain level, I'm more interested in the originality of an idea or presentation. The fifth time you've seen a mode of transportation mechanically blow up, from firetruck to streetcar, you get a little bored with the idea.

I remember watching a true cult classic - "C.C. and Company" - latenight at 2:00 a.m. several years ago. (Once movies are older than twenty years or so, you can ignore really bad plots and just focus on how times and attitudes have changed.) The story, which reminded me of "Easy Rider," was mildly interesting in a boring sort of way, focusing, as the hero's name would imply - "C.C. Ryder" - on motorcycles. I was able to recognize it as an action movie, albeit without much action. There was an easily identifiable hero rebelling against "the man," "society," or "whatever you got," who, of course, had an attractive girlfriend. Everything appeared to be building up a final confrontation between the hero and a large and angry motorcycle gang. When the climax of that last confrontation occurred, there was one explosion. One. And a very small one at that. I remember thinking - "that's it?" I'd been programmed by the summer blockbusters to expect bigger explosions, and a lot more of them. Still, I had to realize that people during that time must have thought it somewhat exciting, and maybe even a little shocking. (Although I've read critics had panned the movie even back then.) I guess I've been inoculated against poor action movies. I've built up a type of mental resistance because essentially they're all the same. As an overall group, I believe we've all become a little bored with this sort of movie, but as long as there are still teenagers struggling with their own aggressive hormones, and who also have money to burn, there will continue to be a KABOOM! in the summer movies.

Heat

It has been really hot during the last few days, especially considering that it is now september and things should be cooling off in this part of the country. The heat has been partially responsible for the general malaise I've been feeling over the last two days. While things around me seem to be speeding up (what with my plans to move and all combined with finishing the final tasks at my summer job), I've been personally slowing down - like taking naps and watching television. No-one really likes change when they are relatively comfortable, and it has been a reluctant realization on my part that compels me to admit that I really don't like change, even when I'm uncomfortable. Still, I will force myself forward; I just hope it won't take to heavy a toll.