The Wandering Path

I stayed in bed until almost three today. Disgusting.

I've been thinking about things to be thankful for...
-- No more Doing Thinking. Ever.
-- I didn't fail enough in Japanese to be remanded to a lower level class
-- My family still loves me
-- My cat still loves me
-- We have an awesome x-mas tree this year
-- My mother still makes cookies with flour in, despite the fact that she's not allowed to eat them
-- Opportunities abound for the intelligent, couch-surfing, amateur programmer in the Land of Apps-- My nephew is wonderful (he makes me think that having kids someday isn't a terribly bad idea)
-- Family Days are a new development but they're already integrating into my sense of equilibrium

I'm hoping to graduate in this coming year. My mother refers to my progress towards a degree as being asymptotic. It's entirely too accurate.

Oh god, kill me now.

Why is it that most of my friends hated school?

Growing up in the US means that you are required to obtain a certifiable education. The government provides for a huge, lumbering public school system that has the kind of momentum you might associate with a small planet, but you don't necessarily have to attend it. This doesn't prevent everyone from paying for it, but that's not really the point. It is good to have a freely available system of education; this is one of those things that just *is*. Knowing more helps you to do more, to understand more, to be deliberate in avoiding harm and promoting well-being. Given enough time and a sufficiency of paper I could write up explanations linking every school lesson I remember to its useful-in-life, so-what meaning. I could write up explanations for the ones I don't remember, but I would need to look them up first (and really, the ones I remember almost have to matter in real life, or I wouldn't remember them...)

" 'Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months,' said the Baron.

'Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it's too late.'...
'Learning is about finding out who you are, what you are, where you are and what you're standing on and what you are good at and what's over the horizon, and, well, everything.' "
--Terry Pratchett
 

 

I am not saying that the public school system is wrong because that would ignore the fact that people come out of it capable, knowledgeable, and willing to learn still more. What I am saying is that our public school system is not right enough. It shouldn't be such a war to change the things we teach and the way we teach them, as if evolution and adaptation only happen to things that contain DNA. Considering the size, completely rebuilding the school system would involve an unacceptable stretch of down-time, and redesigning the system would be like expecting a man with a peg leg to remain standing when you snatch it out from under him to exchange it for a more modern prosthetic.

my depression is on overdrive so everything feels like the worst thing ever
don't really like complex thanksgiving foods? worst food ever
tired of listening to your family talk about work? worst conversation ever
can't seem to sit down and write that paper for class? worst assignment ever
still failing to memorize that kanji? worst kanji ever

I basically feel like shit in every direction all at once--spectacular, but very, very miserable. And angry. And other unreasonable reactions.

Why do I feel like I'm going insane?

Oh wait, nm

IT'S BECAUSE I AM

Yesterday I spent an hour and a half talking with my thinky-dinky prof. We did not talk about class. She requested my entire college history. I don't have any idea why I gave it to her rather than just saying no, you can't have it, it is mine and it is personal. By the time I got to the ferry I realized that she had managed to open up every single one of my soul-wounds from the past five years and in doing so had triggered all of my warning circuits.

FLEE NOW
IT IS NOT SAFE HERE

I did not sleep well because of the general anxiety and disorientation of remembering/reliving old pains. I am left miserable today, fighting weakly against the seductive pull of depression and collapse. These past several quarters, while I wasn't doing anything much, I think they gave my soul time to heal up and reconstruct so as to work around my crippled bits.

I'm not sure if I hate my professor, but I know I resent her all to hell for this.

I have it.

My current war with myself is mostly centered on school. Things like actually attending or spending any time studying are a little more difficult than what I would term "usual". My Japanese class is easy to attend; the people are nice, and the experience is both fun and memorable. My other class I have trouble doing anything for. I'm not sure what all is twisted up in my perceptions about it, but it's not good, and I guarantee that what I experience and what actually happens are considerably out-of-joint.

I need to stop trying to do homework the-day-of and start actually completing assignments (and thinking about them) in a manner that makes them fit to turn in. I've requested a meeting with my thinky-dinky prof, and she said Thurs evening should work and that she would really like me to email some of my work on account of they only have one journal entry from me. My initial response to this was: Oh, shit, if I want to turn in any of my work I need to sanitize it first. And what they mean by work is just journal entries and notes on readings, which seems bloody wasteful of their time and mine, but they control the credits so I need to bend my neck.

Bend, neck, bend.

Dear crazy professor folks,

You are crazy.
I am crazier.
Let's compromise.

I don't really know if this class failed to meet some subconscious expectations or something simply rubbed me the wrong way, but I quickly learned to condescend when I was being condescended to. I felt insulted by the Analytic Thinking pamphlet and by the way it was used and referred to as if gospel to treasure and disseminate to the masses. It is not, not, NOT anything like that for me. It is a supercilious, over-simplified, apallingly rude, and utterly condescending piece of intellectual-elitist bullshit. I can already think, thank you, and will continue to do so in a way that allows me to feel both comfortable and capable because I've had enough practice to figure it out by now. Stop trying to dissect my brain in some mistaken attempt to find what's missing.

I appreciate that you haven't taught this class before, so it's just as new for you as for me and all my classmates. This doesn't, in my view, excuse your ineptitude, but that may just be inherent to your way of coming at it or some other aspect. It makes me sick to sit an listen to you saying absolutely nothing. If you can't be concise, go take a fucking writing course. Also, stop whinging it. Stop trying to get us to teach ourselves. Stop being absolute gits about teaching -- I paid for this class because I want the credits, but any other miserable class could do as well. I might just as well go back to EA or the disaster of my internship and STICK IT OUT instead. God, i'm tired of hating school.

more scathing comments later, must go attend your monday class.
i also need to talk with you two, but I'll be damned if I know how to do it without ripping into you.

Round Two

It is not clear to me whether or not I should be searching thinky-dinky prof's office right now. Beyond that I still have no idea whhere her office might BE. Therefore I am going to ride what little high my second cup of coffee has provided to do my homework. Then I'll fall asleep on this comfy couch in SEM2. We'll see about other things later.

I've been thinking about it, and I think that the thing that worries me the most about my escapades so far in the idea-land of teaching is that everyone is supportive, and that everyone thinks I would make a really good teacher. I'm not exaggerating here. I trust most of them to have the willpower to warn me off if they thought I would make a bad teacher, but I didn't really think about being a good teacher until they stated their opinions on that score. Either they mean it or they're being crazy supportive for reasons unknown and thoroughly nefarious.

I made this list, back before I even did the survey on how to be a teacher, and it goes like this:

I could be a teacher  because...

...I know how to stay up all night grading tests
...I've always been the student that worshiped the teachers, so maybe I can learn to worship the students
...I like having all the answers, and giving them away
...school is structure, and structure is my salvation
...I could be good at it
...when my role is defined, I'm good at people
...tenure is a good prop against failure
...time can't flow backwards
...I can't play game and fall in love with abstractions if I want to live a life, or if I simply want to live
...goal-oriented tasks are my main specialty
...habits of activity are not the same as habits of thought
...I've given up science, but science won't let me go
...I want a reason to get up in the morning
...someone has to teach them, or how will they learn?

I am organized
I have patience
I can cope with bureaucracy
I am a member of the tech generation
I am able to try
I want to try


I WANT TO TRY

School tomorrow, and I'm getting a bit wound-up about it. Annoyingly wound up. This is my very last night at the house-sitting house, and I am overwhelmingly thankful for that fact because I really just hate the place. It's the uncomfortable bed, and the pouty dog, and the uneven staircase, and the extremely loud live-bird alarm clock. It may also be the TV and how it seems to suck all ambition right out of me. I'm a terrible channel surfer, and very glad that I don't watch TV at home anymore because I got too frustrated trying to find the channels after the digital conversion sent things into a jagged dissociation from realistic numbers.

Happiness is currently the fact that my mother's investment in my real-cash-economy game has earned almost $300 since my birthday. That's twelve days, people, averaging about $25/day, which is three hours of work at minimum wage in Washington State (without even considering all those taxes that come out of wages). This thing is earning half-time minimum wage and all my mother and I have to do is sit quietly and GRIN.

Anyway, I'm going to go inspect the Japanese textbooks again just to give myself a sense of purpose and, I dunno, hope? I'm too rusty to be confident.