how do you stop this train?

( ( listen while you read ) )

The past week was filled with ups and downs. While I’m relieved that my hectic schedule is becoming more and more routine, that is also my biggest concern. Things are too routine. Things are hitting a groove, and I don’t want to run this track. Is there any way to stop this train? Derail? Jump off? Stop throwing in coals? I dunno, but I’m working on it.

Sometimes when I talk to my parents on the phone I get frustrated, too quickly upset, because they act like everything is ok. My mom asks me mundane questions, like “did you have a good day?” or “what are you going to eat for dinner?” and I get pissed off (and then regret it later) because those questions assume everything is easy, that the biggest thing I have to worry about is what I’m going to eat next. And though that’s not such an unreasonable concern, I feel like there are priorities that overshadow my nutrition. Like, the fact that I feel so desperately heartsick, the fact that I’m growing to hate my job more and more each day, that I feel so helplessly incompetent at my job, that I spend every weekday waiting for the weekend, and that I spend every weekend dreaming about a future far, far away, with a home, with laughter. A future where I don't have to wait for one hour of every day to be happy and watch the rest of it fall apart.

I’m a hopeless depressive. I think on some level I delight in misery, I can’t remember to just be happy. For instance, as I write this, I remind myself how silly and whiny I must sound to someone who’s lost a family member, friend or lover to war, disease, natural disaster, human folly. And I try to move on with my day, as if nothing is wrong. (Even as I write this, I think “is something wrong?” I can’t identify it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.)

Anyway, this whole thing was meant as an exercise to get me started writing so I could write a reflection for my grad class in Special Ed Fieldwork. The prompt asked me to “identify a challenge in the past week.” The question’s answered, but I can’t submit this. So, back to work…

-stephanie

sometimes you just need to be reminded

school sucks. what else is new? whether you're a student, or a teacher, the school is not a pleasant place to be.

sometimes i feel myself sinking into this deep and dark depression where i lose all sense of hope and possibility. i once believed that the school was the place for change and revolution. i now understand why ppl would hear me talk with my hopeful idealism and laugh.

it's only the first day of the week, and i am already counting down the days until friday. my friend Tim and i were dreaming out loud about a place where we would be able to enjoy teaching, and would love going to work every day, but that place is not where i work.

it's hard to feel like my job is worth the time and suffering i put into it when every day i suspect the students would be just as happy (if not more) if i weren't there. the ones who say they "love" math are liars and/or sycophants. and i must admit, i'm even growing to fall for it. the ass-kissers are at least trying to make my job a little easier.

i came here with bold ideas for reforming education and changing pedagogy to empower youth and change the world. but the more i actually teach, the more i lose my belief that democratic education and revolutionary pedagogy are possible in american public education. at least, certainly not in anything but a higher educational setting.

i read this livejournal entry by my friend Brandon, and felt sad and nostalgic to be reminded of the kind of education i once called "a dream."

indeed, unrealized.

-stephan!e

politickling

tweeted ideas for a debate drinking game!
had i money to buy alcohol, i would probably not be conscious to type these words right now, so consider yrselves lucky!

chatting to my friend Brandon about the first presidential debate (read: a huge disappointment).

so, if you didn't make it thru the debate, read B's and my commentary instead. it will probably save you the 2 hours of life we spent actually watching.

-stef

---

me: I MISS YOU!!!!!

6:11 AM i'm sending you a virtual hug RIGHT NOW

**squuueeeeeeeezzzzeeee!!!!!**

Brandon: and while we hug, I will nonchalantly and secretly work my hand over your luscious booty

6:12 AM me: ahahahahahha

i wouldn't want it any other way!

did u watch teh debates?

Brandon: sho did

me: i did too

but might as well not have

6:13 AM Brandon: for serious

me: i feel like the whole time they were just trying to make each other look foolish

mccain's whole message was "obama is naive"

and obama's was "mccain is a doddering old fool"

6:14 AM we didn't need 2 hours of "debate" to get that, come on!

Brandon: i was really looking forward to the part of this campaign when something substantial would happen, but I'm starting to lose hope that that would actually happen

me: yeah

i was actually excited, until i saw the debate

and realized we're pretty much screwed

Brandon: for serious

6:15 AM me: it's a pretty shitty time to be a politically conscious american

Brandon: agreed

me: on another note,

6:17 AM do you have Lykke Li?

that was the other one i was thinking of sending you

Brandon:

no, i haven't even heard such a crazy name!

me: oh yay!

then i can share some swedish goodness with you!

6:18 AM b/c of course, as with all music of the past 2 or 3 years, it comes from sweden!

Brandon: i have vastly been ignoring the swedes in my life and they need to come back

me: i'm seriously thinking i need to move there

YES

we all do

/ need swedes

6:19 AM OK

so you should listen to the album

it's dance-y

6:20 AM Brandon: ooo!

me: which means you will LOVE it

Brandon: i haven't had something dancey in a while

me: and come on, it's swedish

you should move here and have a dance party with me

we could drive away global warming with our amazing powers of dance

6:21 AM Brandon: that would be only the most amazing solution to our problems ever

me: woudln't it?

6:22 AM i think that we should propose that as the next debate topic

Brandon: i pine for such a resolution to things

me: "senators obama and mccain, if you could fight global warming with the power of dance, what would be yr best moves?"

Brandon: and what would you choose to dance to?

6:23 AM me: i imagine mccain would do the old hip, hand grind

you know, the butter churn

Brandon: if his hip lasts that long

me: hahahahahaha

Brandon: i was kind of impressed that he was actually able to stand for the duration of the debate

me: haha, i hadn't thot of it

6:24 AM oh man, i AM really excited for hte VP debate tho

Brandon: it should certainly be entertaining if nothing else

me: palin's gonna get absolutely thrashed

Brandon: in the post-debate thing when they were interviewing biden he has absolutely no reservations about what he says haha

it was great

me: i don't know if i like biden yet, but SHIT, he is out to embarass her

shoudn't be hard to do tho

Brandon: i like biden

me: yeah, haha, i know

6:25 AM wait, did the VPs already debate?

did i miss it?

Brandon: i think the ticket would be better if it was reversed

me: damn!

Brandon: no, they're next thursday

me: oh, sweeeeeeet!

Brandon: i wonder if the republicans are regretting it yet

me: i hate that ppl are actually more excited about th GOP now that she's on the ticket

haha

6:26 AM i heard some interesting commentary on Countdown with Keith Olbermann today

Brandon: i think that's starting to die down now though

i heard someone call her Caribou Barbie and i thought that was pretty funny

me: some conservative woman writing to say that Palin was an embarassment and she should step down if she knew what was best for her party and her country

i thot that was pretty apt

caribou barbie?

HILARIOUS.

6:27 AM Brandon: yeah, i've seen a lot of commentaries of people telling her she should step down

me: she's gonna fall onher face in the debate on thursday

Brandon: gosh i hope so

6:28 AM me: oh man!!!! (gleeful squealing)

it's gonna be so awesome

i'm gonna plan anight around it

wanna watch together?

Brandon: i thought it was really telling that after the debate they interviewed biden, but palin wasn't there and they interviewed giuliani instead who is just an arse

me: oh man, giuliani...

6:29 AM the GOP just can't catch a break

ha ha

Brandon: idont know what he was watching, but none of his comments made any sense in reference to the debate

6:32 AM me: yeah.. he probly just wanted to talk about 9/11 right?

oh rudy rudy rudy

the GOP's one-hit wonder
"play freebird!"

Sisyphean punishment

image source

i'm beginning to suspect i've done something to deeply offend the gods.

why else would they have doomed me to such a Sisyphean task? i can think of no better phrase to describe my experiences thus far teaching 6th grade special ed math and science in south central LA: the long days and nights of constant worrying and physical stress, the huge gaps in achievement meant to be overcome in one year, the endless lesson-planning for classes the next day that don't even see full implementation because of my students' eruptive behavior, the false sense of achievement and hope when my students finally understand a concept one day, only to feel extra deflated and dispirited when they come back the next day having forgotten it all again, spending 3 whole weeks just trying to teach the bare basics of math, while the students constantly scream and yell saying it's "baby work" and still get all the problems wrong, giving up my breaks and my lunches and yes even my dinners to meet with students, talk with parents, grade papers and write new worksheets, only to come in the next day and have to do it all again.

HUGE BOULDER + HILL = ETERNITY OF FRUSTRATION.

i am quickly growing to hate my job. i spend the majority of my day waiting for the day to end. when not thinking about that, my thoughts turn to trying to calculate the remaining days before i am completely free of my contract and can walk away. June 2010 just seems like too long to wait...

i'm wondering where my train derailed... i came here with good intentions, to take a teaching job so i could help people and feel like i'm making a difference, to avoid a life in corporate america and a desk job with no sense of purpose, to avoid feeling miserable all day and hating my life and my work and never seeing the sunshine.

i never knew my dream job would actually turn out to be my personal hell.

and this is only week 4. there are 32 more weeks to go. (my students could not tell you what percentage of the year is finished. they could not tell you how many weeks total there were to begin with.*)

welcome to the jungle!
-stef


*there are 36 weeks in the school year (32+4=36). i'm only 11.1% done (4/36=.1111=11.1%)

end of the line

tonight, in my grad class, Behavior Management:

Tim - “what if [a new teacher] gets assaulted by a kid? what can he do?”
professor - “press charges.”
Tim - “can he hit back?”
David - “you know, out of self defense.”
Kyle - “what if you choke someone out, you know, just to make sure they don’t hurt anyone else?” [makes choking gesture]

later: Milton - "i am not getting hit by a kid and taking it, i'm sorry."

three brawny, adult male first-year teachers, talking about their students.

clearly at wit's end.
-stephanie

save your day

"do what you must,
you need to be brave to save your day."

===

the end of summer came suddenly. here in LA, all the restaurants and pubs were lamenting the death of summer, trying to sell off the last of their summer wine collections and closing the patio seating. i spent the weekend walking thru thrift stores looking for a sweater that would remind me of the sweaters i have back home.

i watch the days pass thru my window in the apartment, watch the sunlight change angles on the tree leaves, wait for leaves to fall, wait for night to get cold, wait for december so i can fly home and lie down in the snow and grass and drink hot chocolate in the kitchen of my house and feel warm again.

this video captures the kind of sepia hues and nostalgic tones i meant when i wrote this post.

there are no words to describe how i'm feeling lately, only images. and i feel a little lost because i do not know how to produce them myself, only share them.

-stef

disgusted.

so today was a long day. my special ed students left school on friday and forgot ALL of the math they learned in the last week over the weekend. we came back today and had to relearn EVERYTHING about subtraction. seriously, everything. like, borrowing, taking away the one, dropping the decimal points, all the bells and whistles. and, they decided today would be a great day to pull out all the tricks: the name-calling, the getting out of seats, the extra hyper attention deficits, the annoying mouth noises, the pencil-tapping, the blank stares, and the gum chewing. all so that my supervisors (TWO of them) could come in to observe and think my classroom has been a complete mess this whole time (which, trust me, it has not been). then, to make it extra fun, the ppl in the office decided today would be a good day to play with PA system at school. imagine shrill squeaking so loud that it lulls you into mental and physical paralysis. and causes you to develop an eye tic. 

oh, and my aide decided she "wasn't feeling well," so she took off early (after, again, dawdling into class 30 minutes late). please, if anyone should be using that excuse for laziness, it should be me.

i didn't eat lunch today because i held my class for lunch detention and worked on their math problems with them, and then my conference period was taken up by two meetings, which lasted the entire time, so i went straight thru my day, 7 to 3, without any break, not even a bathroom break, and no more than 5 minutes to unwind. it's a good thing i decided to risk being late this morning to eat a quick bowl of cereal otherwise i probably would have fainted. oh, which i almost did, while i was driving on the fuckin 10 freeway to go to the bank. 

oh, but all of that was fine and dismissible, compared to this: i was waiting in the lobby of the bank, grading papers and prepping for my classes tomorrow, when i saw some douchebag coming out of there wearing this:

(image source)

i was revolted! those GOP fuckers have proceeded to offend me on yet another level, by appropriating the Rosie the Riveter symbol and superimposing Palin's face on it. i wanted to get out of my seat and beat him in the face with the 6th grade science book i was lugging around at the time, but my teacher brain remembered that "violence is not the answer." still, i was close. i was just that mad. 

so, great. in addition to having to teach my special ed students all the california state standards for 6th grade math, i need to add overthrowing the GOP empire to my list of to-do's. can't a woman just catch a break?!

seriously. i don't have time to canvass and help with voter registration drives (and doing all that in CA might not help that much anyway), but i can't sit down and watch this all happening. DO PPL NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE WOMAN IS A FUCKIN WHACKO?!? seriously, check it. 

what scares me most is that ppl are actually MORE excited about the GOP now than they were before. whaa??? what kind of world are we living in if ppl become manically obsessed with an unqualified zealot and hypocrite? well, i guess i just answered my own question...

to close, i know that there was a lot of hullabaloo over Obama's pig/lipstick comment, and how the GOP is now accusing Obama of sexism. please, let's not be ridiculous. that's not what the man intended.

but if it looks like a pig, and talks like a pig, i'm certainly not calling it a duck, if you know what i'm saying...

-stephan!e

p.s. to give you a good perspective on the lipstick comment, listen to this segment from NPR.

p.p.s. UPDATE (9/15/08, approx. 10 pm PST): my dear friend Alex had this to say in response: "Stephanie, you live in California, the Democrats automatically win there. You can take a brief respite from trying to bring down the Old-Money, Oil-Profiteering, Fear-Mongering, and from what I hear, Massacre-Inspiring Tyrants of the GOP..." haha. thanks for keeping it real...

introduction

i can't stop listening to this song by Voxtrot. it fits my mood and the way i've been feeling lately, like flipping thru a stack of polaroids you found tucked away, all sepia tones and childhood memories, a feeling of loss and recovery – "i won't know how much i've lost until i've gone away."


i imagine all my childhood memories – raking leaves and jumping in the piles, taking bike rides to the park with my mom and dad, picking apples in the country on weekends, hanging Halloween decorations in the yard, the brisk chill of getting in the pool at the end of the summer – flashing thru a projector, reflecting off a screen and flashing on my face. there is jumping, there is running, there is dancing, and there is laughter.

it's getting colder as it slowly turns to autumn in LA, and i am having vestigial memories and longings for the changing leaves, cool breezes and indian summers, the look of grass (of bluegrass!) and the smell of my neighborhood at dusk, and the look of the sky, which somehow i remember seeming closer to earth and looking softer than it does here, where it is far away and tinged with gray, immense yet distant and always revealing itself to make me feel small and alone.

i listen to this and imagine driving home from school to surprise my parents, imagine stepping my foot in the door and seeing them emerge from the living room, running to hug me. or i imagine blasting this in my car late at night, as i drive thru the deserted streets in oxford, ohio, to meet a friend for drinks, to crash at someone's house for a sleepover, to go to my boyfriend's house and sit on the couch and talk. it's a rush to feel at home again.

this is music that makes my feet move. they want to hit the pavement, to start running, to put pedal to the metal and drive drive drive, to find endless roads and listen to this on repeat. as the music picks up, i get closer and closer to home.

-stef

---

"Introduction" by Voxtrot
Open your eyes and stretch your hands
This house is clean but it is not my home
Did I make this bed
The two hands touch on two

Sometimes I think of some place colder
The sound of traffic and the way it's worn
When you feel yourself grow up inside of here

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me just like I am

Remember we ran through lovely streets
We made our rules and then we broke them first
It felt like we were running all the time
When I wouldn't give one ugly moment
I'd wrap it up, I'd keep it in my sock
I can keep it, yeah, I know what's yours is mine

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me when

I step into the sea, it let's me love some other day
We get bored of weakness all the time
Now I won't know how much I lost until I've gone away
Your sun sets when my sun starts to shine

rise above

oh sweet bliss...

i am listening to the dirty projectors sing "Rise Above" loud on my speakers, eating a big bowl of fruit i cut the other night just for a moment like this.

it's FRIDAY. i made it thru another week. thank the stars!

i did some yoga today. funny story: the class i went to is called "Sando Yoga" and i remember seeing that and thinking "huh, i've never heard of that kind of yoga before..." but today, in class, about halfway thru, i realize it's actually the guy's name. a large-ish Indian gentleman who wore linen pants and a golf shirt to teach us yoga, which consisted mostly of stretching forwards and backwards and calling everybody "his friend." good times. i might go again.

i took a swim afterward and then came home and made myself a delicious dinner (homemade salsa and guacamole with a burrito! i'm getting good at this!) and now i'm just about ready to crash. another funny thing about today's yoga class was that during the "meditation" or "resting" session at the end, i'm pretty sure i dozed off. when we were sitting in lotus pose, i started nodding off, and then when he instructed us to lie down on our backs, i took the liberty of falling asleep entirely.

i'm just so tired lately. all of today was spent tossing a beach ball around and teaching my students how to read number lines and factor numbers and subtract 6 digit decimals. now that's a mental workout!

i'm going to plan my weekend (make sure i have time to play/do nothing) and then, TO BED!

-stef

some thoughts from the classroom

hello hello! sorry for the lack of posts! between trying to figure out my first year of teaching and my first year of grad classes, as well as opening bank accounts, figuring out car insurance, stressing out about affording gas, groceries, teacher clothes, almost burning the house down, and trying to find time to eat, i've been busy!

anyway, here is a quickie update on my first few days of teaching. it's rushed and scattered, but it's HERE and that is what matters.

love and kissies,
stef

Tuesday, Sept 9th. DAY 5.
long day. this doesn't get any easier, but thankfully Tuesdays are early dismissal. i just don't know what to do with my classes: the kids in my special ed class are so behind, and so out of control, that i worry i'm never going to get around to actually teaching them anything this year. even the simple activities, like writing their names and thinking of words to describe themselves, are frustrating for my kids, who read at an abysmally low level. many don't know the difference between + and - (that is, that a + means to add), so i will need to spend a lot of time just developing math literacy.

what's really interesting about this whole experience is that i still have yet to learn who is on my case load, who the special ed students are (because i have a general ed class that seems to be mixed) and what their disabilities are. yesterday, i learned that my student Jordyn is autistic, but i only learned because i spoke with one of my colleagues who had him for english. my student Chantal is deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) but i had no idea, because she wears her hair so as to cover her ears! this entire time i was getting frustrated with her b/c she never understood what was going on and i had to constantly repeat myself to her, so i thot she just never paid attention. so i felt terrible when i finally learned that the real reason was that she couldn't even hear me!

it's amazing that as a special ed teacher, i am not informed of my students' disabilities before i teach them. it would seem to me that in order to ensure that they are receiving the necessary accomodations and the best instruction possible that i would need to have at least a basic understanding of what the student's situation is. it's been frustrating to find that reality is much different.

the general ed class is going really well though. i got the parent surveys back the other day and i plan on calling homes tonight. the students in there are all really great. we did an activity in science today where they had to bring in an object from home and keep it secret then get up in class and describe it for others to guess. it was supposed to help them with their observation and description skills. my favorite one was my student Frank (the one who asked me if he could have my old uniform clothes). he brought in a battery and his clues were so clever!

even though i'm almost a week into school, i keep getting new students. today, i got three students referred to my homeroom, who weren't even on my roster, because some bum teacher said "he only teaches magnet kids" and sent them out. i was livid! it was the same guy who's been hoarding teaching materials and refusing to help anyone else out. the students came in and i didn't have a desk for any of them, i already had students sitting elbow to elbow in the back and at my desk. serious overcrowding issues!

more later. MUST EAT.

check it

my 6th grade math/science class website!

does the dream seem true yet?

you tell me.
-stef

surviving middle school (again)

teaching has been fun! i started this wednesday, and tho was stressed and more than reluctant to go the first day, since then i've been getting the hang of it and i love it.

fun things i did with the kids today:
-had our first Fun Friday (the kids voted unanimously to play Heads Up 7 Up. we even did a lightning round!)
-kids were excited to play MATH RACE! (see, math can be fun!)
-taught them how to say hello in turkish! ("merhaba"...?) they LOVED that. they were walking around all day saying "merhaba, merhaba, merhaba" back and forth.
-my homeroom kids were really sad not to have me twice in one day today. they say they love coming here to unwind and they like talking to me about their day. that made me feel good.
-today is "scrub day" (the 8th graders - i guess - pick on the younger kids and stick their heads in the toilets and "scrub" them with it) so my 6th graders said they were scared to be bullied. i let them know that Ms. Lee has a zero tolerance policy and that if i ever saw them bullying or being bullied i would make sure to stop it. i also told them my no violence policy and told them the bravest thing to do is walk away. i also taught them the meaning of "escalate" and connected it to "escalator" which was a particularly clever and spontaneous teaching moment, if i do say so myself. :-)
-i also told my students that if they ever felt scared or worried, to feel free to come to my room (207) and that they could stay in my room and eat lunch or hang out and play games. i told them my room would always be a safe space for them. at nutrition and at lunch, my students Orlando and Enrique came by to play tic-tac-toe and to play with playdough and bouncy balls. we listened to music while i got my next class ready, and they shared some of their music interests with me. i have them written down to research later (tho i was really surprised to hear the kids are still listening to Slipknot and the Offspring these days. those were bands I listened to in middle school!)
-had a tough time with my SDC special ed class today. they were being rowdy, calling each other names and being generally disruptive. the entire class stayed after 4th period during lunch for detention, in which they were not allowed to talk and had to practice being quiet. i held a few even longer for being tardy, and then had 2 additional students stay even longer for being disruptive and disrespectful to the teacher and the aide.

= so far so good. i'm being a hard ass when i have to, and having fun when i can.

also: hearing the kids say "bye Ms. Lee!" at the end of class or "hi Ms. Lee" when i pass them in the hall is still one of the things that makes me inexplicably glad.

more later. must clean and plan before i leave school. and i'm really REALLY tired, wanting a nap...

-"Ms. Lee"

emotionally disturbed

today, in my grad class on students with emotional disturbances:

the prof: "i worked at a psych ward. in california, we don't lock em up, we just close the door. one of my students had multiple personalities. one of her personalities was a hooker. so, one day she got up to leave. i told her she couldn't go, she had to stay. she told me she was off, she was going to make money. so to get her to stay in class i asked her how much she cost. she said $10. so i gave her the bill and told her she couldn't leave, i just bought her for the hour."

wow.

really puts my day into perspective. (details forthcoming on my first day of teaching – today!)

-stef

searching for home

that's my room last year, 2 or 3 days before the end of the year. i took this picture in a fleeting moment before i ran out of the room to meet friends to eat lunch at the dining hall, and something about the light that morning, the way my bed looked, the wood of the floor, the look of all my senior project books stacked up on my floor, all read, annotated, and waiting to be returned to the library, made me halt, smile while fighting back the urge to cry. it was the first really gripping moment i remember knowing i would miss moments like these, these significant pauses before a sudden leap.

---

i've been dragging my feet around my apartment in Los Angeles for the past week, remembering how happy i was just a few days ago, thinking about how funny it is, these changes in moods, the feeling of safety and completeness suddenly rushing away from me, like a parachute that won't open, just a useless backpack – dead weight.

i find myself trying to preserve some memory, some trace of a past self, a past life, a vestigial existence, in order to live thru my present. i'm collecting all the salvagable bits and pieces – the smell of the linens on my bed, the warmth of sunlight thru tree leaves coming in my window, the look of shadows on wooden floor, the smell of an old book and the feel of a hardbound in the crook of my arm as i walk around town, the tune of a Billy Bragg song i used to hum, the slight hum of a harmonica – and trying to weave them together, trying to create a home from them, some shelter for my troubled mind, some comfort to retreat to when i forget how to fall asleep at night, when i get tearful and remember that there's no one home to eat my dinner with, again.

the time in LA doesn't move. it never rains. it never gets colder, so if it weren't for the shortening days, i wouldn't know that we were heading toward december.

i feel an onsetting depression: i try to celebrate small successes – a tasty self-cooked meal, finding textbooks online for almost $100 less than bookstore price, fixing the broken printer at home, finding my keys after absent-mindedly misplacing them, crossing the street without getting hit by a car – but i find i'm pretty good at realizing when i'm trying to fool myself.

it's funny: when i would go back to school in Oxford for the fall, i would always get bouts of seasonal depression with the change in weather. the sudden cold, the lengthening nights, the accumulation of work, all would make me miss the summer and my family, and home.

but today, and yesterday, and all the many days before, i've been wondering what life in Oxford is like, missing the closeness of everything, the convenience of having 20 or so friends in walking distance, of having constant company, of never feeling alone. i miss going to class and being pleasantly surprised to bump into a friend on the way over on my bike. i miss my bike. i miss classes i enjoy. i miss having friends.

i had a post in mind when i came here, but it seems i've already written it. over a year ago, i wrote these two posts back to back and they, as reflections on my present state, echo and project my distress.

i'm listening to Billy Bragg now, and i'm pining for home.

-stephan!e