West Coast to East (and back again)

notes from my second (!!) move from California to New York, summer-ish 2012. left a Silicon Valley job to go to grad school out east, chasing love, running away from myself. i got this in a fortune cookie: "every man should seek to learn what he is running from, to, and why." notes found scrawled on the back of an envelope, stuffed into glovebox, to be rediscovered in 2020, as i start to think about moving back out West. everything [sic] Arizona: cool and green what is it a/b the Arizona landscape that makes the sunset so beautiful? N.Mex: coyote nights howling at the moon Vegas: oversexed drag show/talent show/circus freak Grand Canyon: layers of red, yellow, ocre, orange, gray like jell-o cake Sante Fe: trees illuminated with a thousand lights milky way fried egg and red/green chile Kansas: red moon lightning skies sleeping in the gracious shadow of a McDonald's parking lot Iowa: corn fields and crappy roads feeling tired of driving and missing home #writing

Ozymandias

so many thoughts on last night's mind-blowing, stomach-churning, fever-inducing episode of Breaking Bad. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!]

1.  the first is that BB is unarguably THE best show i have ever seen, or will possibly ever see. it has ruined TV for me. last week's episode began tickling at this suggestion; this week's episode firmly confirms it. all bow down to the crew of directors and writers and actors involved in making this masterpiece.

2.  how great was that opening shot? a close up on boiling water in a coffee pot -- that volatile state when water (calm, still, untainted and soothing) rapidly transforms, spurting, jumping, wailing, able to burn, sting, and scar -- and a key part to "cooking." we realize in that visual the ways in which the process of cooking is a greater and more appropriate metaphor than we had ever realized, illustrating the changes that have taken place in Walt, and foreshadowing the sudden reaction point the show's narrative will reach by the end of the episode ("Boiling is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding environmental pressure." -Wikipedia)

the image also made me recall Walt's clever use of a coffee maker to escape earlier in the series, a devasatating juxtaposition with what transpires in the next few minutes (no clean escapes here; Walt is stuck, once again in handcuffs, and forced to see the damage of his decisions, unable even to bargain for Hank's life -- the first time he is rendered utterly powerless in the show's history)... BB is great at developing the significance of recurring images... as in later in the episode when Walt's pants are rediscovered in the desert -- hilarious and brilliant, and a bit of a wink to fans of the show.

3.  Hank's last words to Walt are brief, typically Agent Schrader, and one of the few moments of courage we see in this episode (the others being Walt Jr.'s defense of his mom -- see below -- and later, Walt's phone call to Skyler -- theories on that in another post...): "You're one of the smartest people I've ever met. But you're too stupid to see he made up his mind 10 minutes ago." Hank leaves us with the overarching moral of the story: Walt is someone who foolishly overestimates his own control over things, unable to see the inevitability of his destructive decisions. finally someone is able to point out the stupidity underlying Walt's illusions of glory and triumph.

4.  the flashback to Walt and Jesse's first cook is a good one, but not in the most obvious way. true, we witness Walt's "first lie to Skyler," and this is an innocent, more naive time, when Walt merely wanted to protect his family, soothe things over, mollify his pregnant wife with dreams of pizza.

*all images and screenshots taken from AMC's Story Sync*

but this is also an origin story for Heisenberg, whose noble intent was always the protection of his family, whose guiding mission and motivation was to provide for them -- from pizza, to Empire.

the image we see at the beginning of this episode of Walt is a vision from a happier time, which hurts all the more when later in the episode, Walt's one moral code -- don't hurt family -- is violently, perversely violated with the loss of Hank. and then later, when even Walt Jr. (whimpering as he defends Walt's reputation against his mom and his aunt) physically stands up to Walt in order to protect Skyler. this was a huge moment -- Walt standing back while his family cowers in fear of him, sobbing to himself, "But we're a family!"

does this look like a family to you?

the evolution of Walt has come full-circle, and the cruel contrast between the first and final seasons (or the terrifying notion that these two personas are, have always been, the same man) feels like a knife twisting in our stomachs, the two scenes acting as frames of reference for each other -- placating with pizza to a living room knife fight. look how far we've come.

this whole episode is a searing look into what Walt's passions and plans have wrought. even with his strategic care, his meticulousness, his ferocity (or perhaps because of them), he has managed to become, in the end, what he least wanted -- a disease on his family, their greatest fear, the source of the deepest, darkest pain and suffering of all.

and yet, what hurts the most for Walt is perhaps the realization that he is suddenly alone -- no, that he has always been alone. his family never wanted this -- pizza was once enough of a happy thought to unite the family -- but Walt set his sights on Empire, on greed ("what's with all the greed? it's unattractive" -Uncle Jack), and on his real priority: #1, his ego (or his id?), Heisenberg.

it's painfully clear, to Walt and to the audience, that he was always alone, that the thing he wanted the most was something he destroyed piece by piece with his own hands. the presumed marital bliss, the ease of a harmonious family life, the comfort of having a loved one on the phone -- these are things that will never be recovered. Walt is left with nothing, realizing he is unfit to take care of Holly, the only family member left who could maybe survive all of this without judgment of him, but who incessantly cries out for Skyler.

again, another recurring image: Holly being abducted by someone in the family.
contrast Walt's taking of Holly to Marie's attempted kidnapping (and Hank's talking her down), and Skyler's despair in reacting to both.

so the episode ends, with Walt being driven away, nothing left for him in the ABQ.

it was an episode befitting of its namesake, "Ozymandias," a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and which managed to bring the show full-circle. for those who missed it, one of the promos for Breaking Bad released over the summer showcased Bryan Cranston reading the poem in Heisenberg's snarling voice, while images of Albuquerque flash before the screen, ending with a shot of the infamous hat alone in a desert of swirling sand.

watching it will give you full-body chills as you realize just how perfect Breaking Bad is, right down to the shortest promo.



"Nothing beside remains..."

some brief opining on the magnificence of Breaking Bad

a scene from last night's S5E13, "To'hajiilee"

the greatest triumph of Breaking Bad is its inevitable tragedy.

despite the foreshadowing and the inescapable justice that awaits Walt (and possibly some other characters) at the end of this, the audience is spell-bound watching it unfold.

consider this: "To'hajiilee" is the first episode in possibly the entire series where the final 30 minutes were totally predictable, and yet, they were the most intense, excruciating minutes i've ever seen (in television and film). that was a ground-breaking moment in television -- when total expectation of what came next was still met with complete and utter stunned surprise. bravissimo!

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a few more thoughts:  

a friend of mine theorized about the significance of Walt's name and his allegiance with the white supremacists (White = right/might). i don't really think there's much symbolic significance to that connection (too literal, in my opinion), but i've often wondered about the significance of the names -- White, Pinkman, and the non-color-related Goodman (a little literary irony, yes) -- and the use of color in the show. did you notice how Lydia wore such a vibrant, almost strident shade of blue in the scene with Todd at the lab? and then Walt wore a drabby cerulean to the desert? even Skyler had a royal blue edging on her sweater in the car wash. and then Jesse frequently wears red, as i believe he was in last night's episode. oh god, and then there's Marie with her obsessive, childish purples! (though recently evolved to dark purple, bordering on black, as if in mourning / edging towards sophistication and adulthood as she becomes privy to the wickedness in the world immediately around her).

i read once that Vince Gilligan made Bryan Cranston try on, like, 50 shirts before he found the right shade of green for the scene they were shooting. so much attention to detail and careful execution!

for more on the color theory behind Breaking Bad, see this infographic from a graphic designer who worked on the show: "Colorizing Walter White's Decay" (via Buzzfeed)

--

also: that scene with Hank on the phone -- one of the few times where Hank seems to express genuine affection for Marie, also the first time you feel he is finally actualized in his career; and then the drama that ensues from the juxtaposition of that with what you know is coming next. brilliant. 

--

an interesting thing happened last night, where the audience knew Jesse was leading Walt into a trap in order to trace the phone call to the location of the money. i initially thought this was a flaw in the writing, that there would be no way the Walt/Heisenberg we know would be so easily duped. Walt would typically see this move coming and be able to counter it, but he was so overcome with greed/rage/love for Jesse that the thought that Jesse would betray him and trick him never entered his mind until it was already too late. it's also possible that Walt's ego got in the way and he never expected Jesse and Hank to join up to outsmart him at his game. 

in this video, Bryan Cranston talks about Walt's descent into a more emotional and less rational state of mind: Bryan Cranston talks Walter White on Talking Bad (via AMCTV.com)

sidenote: isn't he incredibly handsome? i am completely astounded by the physicality of Cranston's acting -- this can't possibly be the same man behind Heisenberg! if you look at pictures from the first season of Breaking Bad and compare them to recent pictures, it's as if Cranston grew a whole knew jawline over the course of the filming. amazing!  

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a logical flaw found in the writing!!

it is hard to believe that Walt, so meticulous and forward thinking, would return the van to Huell and Kubie with desert dust all over it. i mean, doesn't he own a car wash?? specifically a car wash his wife and co-conspirator used to launder his money? also, why would Huell wash a rental before returning it? as Skyler said herself earlier this season, "who washes a rental?!" only suspicious characters, that's who! 

since this is the one clue that leads to Walt being caught, it seems pretty far-fetched. also, Walt seems too smart to not check out a rental place and make sure he is untraceable (especially since earlier this season, he even thought to check his car for a GPS tracking device). 

another thing that struck me as really odd was that Walt goes through a lot of effort to memorize the GPS coordinates, yet he immediately drives right up to the spot, the spot that also happens to be the same spot where he and Jesse made their first cook? i dunno...

living, will

death has been on my mind a lot lately. well, more than usual. ever since i was a kid, i've lived in fear of death, lived in fear of that great expanse of unknown beyond my last breath, in fear of my parents' death, haunted by the sudden passing of friends and family gone too soon. who was it that said life is just the act of dying? or "the day we are born we begin to die"? i hate to think of my life as a shadow negative of this inevitability, but there can be no denying it. i think learning to live is in many ways learning how to die.

this has become more pressing lately. when my Uncle Tony passed away ... spring of 2009, my entire foundation was rocked. it was one of my first years truly living away from home - out of college, working my first real-life, "grown-up" job as a teacher in a public middle school in south central - and i got the news in the middle of a school day, maybe it was even a wednesday. this was the thing i'd always feared, my entire life: leaving home and being away and alone and having to truly assume adulthood when i'd only previously been playing the part. acting like an "adult" in front of a room of insane and belligerent special ed 6th graders, while your entire understanding of reality and space/time is being torn asunder around you is truly an initiation into "adulthood" by means of trial by fire. i have never wanted to punch an eleven-year-old special needs child so much in my entire life.

that first experience of death, trying to understand the definitiveness, the finalness, the never-again-ness, changed me. it ripped the fabric of logic and reason, made my persistent daily wants and needs and desires seem cruel, selfish, terrible. i disgusted myself, felt disgusted at other people, at my/our insistence on living. my hunger pangs, my exhaustion, my cravings for warmth or kindness or whatever were just constant reminders of my own body's persistent fight to stay alive, to feed itself, to rest, to recover. all this pained and aggravated me, since it was also a reminder that these were things my uncle once did, and now won't.

the day after i heard the news, i remember, i emerged from my dark room, where i'd spent the majority of the day [which makes me think the news might have occurred closer to a weekend, or that i was still doing this - violently weeping - several days after the fact] on my bed in a fetal position, my body pinched in on itself in a full-body sob, weeping uncontrollably and relentlessly, and walked outside to get some fresh air (again, the body's urge to do what it needs to survive; in this case, getting some air and sunlight and resuming an upright, healthy posture). the sight of seagulls flying above the palm trees overhead, the sun shining in an almost cloudless sky, the onslaught of terrifying LA rush-hour traffic - all seemed to be terrible, disrespectful, indignant external reminders that life goes on; this day is, in all other respects, just like any other.

---

i have been reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, a birthday gift from my brother this past year. i don't remember how i came to hear about this book, but one day at work i was reading about different psychological phenomena, and "magical thinking" was mentioned, and the book's premise interested me, and since i've spent some part of the last year reading "award-winning" books, i asked for it for christmas. it has been... an informative book. well-researched and well-written, definitely, and interesting, although i hesitate to say "pleasurable," since of all the effects it has had on me, it's probably inspired an even deeper and more paranoid ideation with death, the "act" of dying, and living.

one of the ideas from Didion's book that's really stuck is the idea that the dying person can foretell their death, even in cases accidental or sudden. "Only the dying man can tell how much time he has left." this is, in some ways, a comfort, especially to those who have lost a loved one in tragic accidents, to know that perhaps they knew their time was coming. but, in my case, it's been a terrible fear-enhancer. suddenly, things my parents or friends do, like tell me they love me in an exceptional way, or giving me an important document, seem like portents of doom. and i know that's a terrible thing, like, the prime example of letting fear of death control your life and thoughts. i know it is the mark of a coward to live in constant fear of death, but, here i am. and what to do?

naturally, the thing to do is to prepare. this constant, unebbing thought that "we all know when our time has come" has, of course, come to make me think that perhaps i am about to die. (and even as i write this, i wonder to myself, will typing it make it even more true? will uttering this aloud make it come true, or stave it off?) does the fact that i persist on this notion indicate that i am nearing death, that this book and this idea, given to me so recently, is relevant for a reason, that reason being that something terrible is about to happen? i can't help wondering these things, even though i know it makes me crazy.

last month, my partner Ben lost his younger brother Andrew in a terrible accident. he had been living abroad for nearly 2 years, travelling and teaching in China and Taiwan. he was on a ten-day bike journey around the island of Taiwan, during his 2-week Chinese New Year holiday, when he was struck by an old man driving a van. Andrew died. (typing that still hurts, because it hasn't yet felt real. typing that feels like betrayal, like i've given up hope Andrew can still come back, like i've turned my back on him because i've accepted this reality, even though my mind and heart (and Andrew) live now in a reality separate from what that sentence means). in the days and weeks following, friends and family who knew Andrew have been grappling to understand what happened. friends received Christmas cards from him just days after the accident. i looked back on our exchanges, scrutinized emails, trying to examine them for clues that Andrew, in some way, knew. Andrew and i spoke via email just days before it happened, and i talked to him about visiting Taiwan in the summer, with Ben, and he replied that he was so excited for us to come, he couldn't wait to show us around. the day before the accident, i wanted to post something on his Facebook, commenting on one of his pictures, saying something about how he looked so much like his dad. i didn't, i hesitated and then decided not to, because i wasn't sure how he'd respond or take the comment. i wonder now, if i'd posted it, if he would have paused in the morning to read and respond, and would have thus been a minute or two behind on the road when the van swerved off and hit him where he was, without the comment.

Andrew kept a bucket list, or as he called it, a "to-do list." he didn't want to be an old man looking back at his life with regret. did he know? even if his to-live list wasn't a premonition, he understood that life is precious and fragile and not to be wasted - a profoundly inspiring wisdom borne from an acknowledgment of death; Andrew knew how to live. this is what i want for myself and for my fear of death, a greater appreciation and predilection for living.

Andrew's bucket list was a physical list he checked off and added to. i love that, i love that there are documents that speak to his life and his goals. now that we've lost Andrew (where did you go?) these documents - to-do-lists, journals, emails, blog posts, Facebook - are what we have left, what we can return to. this is my document.*

these days, we are all susceptible to getting lost in the daily grind, on focusing on ends rather than means, and thinking about a distant future rather than enjoying the present. i think living in the constant shadow of death can mean reclaiming life, and i intend to do that.


*i wrote previously about maintaining an e-life thru internet documents here, on my very first blog.

worship this

Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.

The human beauty we're talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings' reconciliation with the fact of having a body.*

-- from this extremely genius article, "Federer as Religious Experience" (emphasis mine)

there are so many wonderful things to love about this article: brilliant writing, brilliant sports writing, David Foster Wallace, tennis, a better understanding of life, love, the writing process, and the capabilities of the human body, and Roger Federer. in short, best thing i'll read today.


*i should note, too, that my brief excerpt doesn't even include his terrific footnote(+). DFW, he really knew his way around a footnote. a man after my own heart.

(+) speaking of which, here's one now:

By the way, it's right around here, or the next game, watching, that three separate inner-type things come together and mesh. One is a feeling of deep personal privilege at being alive to get to see this; another is the thought that William Caines is probably somewhere here in the Centre Court crowd, too, watching, maybe with his mum. The third thing is a sudden memory of the earnest way the press bus driver promised just this [religious] experience. Because there is one. It's hard to describe — it's like a thought that's also a feeling. One wouldn't want to make too much of it, or to pretend that it's any sort of equitable balance; that would be grotesque. But the truth is that whatever deity, entity, energy, or random genetic flux produces sick children also produced Roger Federer, and just look at him down there. Look at that.

"Mirrorings"

What does it mean to be a "me"? What is the "I" that speaks when I open my mouth and say things that "I" feel?

I am a baby in front of a mirror, watching the baby in front of me move her hands and feet when "my" brain tells hands and feet to move. Is this what it means to be a "me"? To know through observation what the self can do and observe its movements as if observing another person through a window? I learn what I look like by sitting in front of the mirror and tracing my movements through space and learning the way my face looks when it feels different ways.

=

I am a kid at my first sleepover. For the first time I observe the habits of other girls before they go to sleep. When you are alone in your "youness" for so long you take things for granted, assume they are that way for everyone. I wear nightgowns to bed and never brush my hair. Other girls wear long plaid shorts and spend a long time brushing their thick brown hair. They eat pancakes for breakfast with lots of syrup, and I'm used to eating rice cakes or porridge with my Mom and Dad and sneaking sips from their coffee. I start brushing my hair and wearing plaid shorts too. Later when all the girls start shaving their legs I ask my mom if I can start and she says she never shaved her legs a day of her life and why should I? I resent her at first but I think about my Mom and how beautiful she is and I used to look just like her, and she looked just like me when she was young, and I think I can wait and think about shaving. I grow out of it - 25 years old and I've never touched a razor to my body and I am glad I never will.

=

I ride in the car with my Aunt Peggy, who isn't related to me, but she's my Aunt's sister-in-law and I've been told to be nice. She looks me over, observes my tom boyish clothes, my sneakers and baggy t-shirt and my plain haircut and she's got a full face of makeup which seems strange to me because I've never seen my mother wear more than some perfume and blush even when she goes to a fancy restaurant. Aunt Peggy tells me I'm "white" because I grew up in Kentucky and my Chinese isn't great. I squirm in my seat a little and try not to let my face show how much I want to hate her right now.

=

In middle school, all the black kids in my general classes make fun of me and pull their eyelids tight and make horrible sounds at me. They throw trash at me when the teacher is turned around. In gym class we do fitness tests and I can run faster, longer and do more pushups than most of the boys, and my body fat index is only a 12%, and still the teachers and older white girls in class tell me it's only because I don't have any breasts and they make me feel small and powerless. In the locker room, I'm ashamed to change out of my gym clothes. I don't wear a bra yet because I don't need one and I feel ashamed. I wear my gym shirt under my uniform until the gym semester is over.

=

In high school some boy named Peter makes fun of me and calls me Su Ling, like he's so funny. I hate him in a way I can't articulate and can't do anything with because if I tried to do anything it would result in some kind of violence. So instead I bottle it up inside me and it hurts me more when it should be hurting him. He calls me Su Ling and pretends to speak Chinese at me. He asks me if I can shoot fireballs with my hands and when he finds out I am good at English, that I can write and read, he says I must be "half and half." I want to exact violence on him and think that if I knew how to shoot a fireball now would be the time to find out.

=

I have my mother's nose and my father's chin but my eyes are mine. I grow up thinking I am small and short and skinny and it isn't until I am an adult that I am told I'm pretty for the first time, that I'm "tall for a girl" that I'm "tall for an Asian" that I'm strong and fit and sexy. It's a new thing but I never get used to it, and never can get enough of it.

=

Some people say I look just like my father. Some people say I look like my mom when she was my age. Other people say I look like Anne Curry, or Mulan, or… I get mistaken for "someone I know" a lot. I wonder if there are only so many combinations of features and everyone's unique combination eventually gets repeated. It's inevitable.

=

I've been thinking about genetics a lot. I look at people and I wonder what pieces they got from their parents. I look at my parents and try to imagine if they knew when they got together what their babies would look like. I look at couples and wonder what the products of their coupling will look like.

=

I think back on childhood and adolescence and I think "I'm lucky I got out alive." So much self-hatred and uncertainty about who to be and how to be. So much judgment and scrutiny. When I was teaching middle school I observed my students with a certain level of curiosity. I never had an unattractive student. They all seemed perfect and cute and delightfully endearing. Do children realize how perfect they are, how needless of change? When I was a kid I sought to change everything about myself, the shape of my nose and eyes, the texture of my hair, my skin, my voice, the thickness of my eyebrows, the length of my arms, the size of my chest, the size of my lips. All I could see as a kid was flaws and how to change them. At some point that stopped and I grew into a confident woman who can see the individual beauty in each person, including herself. That is a remarkable thing. To look in the mirror and see flaws but embrace them, to observe them and know that they belong to you.

#McLobster

first, some context: twitter is currently trending #McLobster.

for me, "McLobster" inspires a flood of love. and shortly after, the singe of regret.

McLobster image from here.

the image of a moist, creamy, curious McLobster, my mother ordering one at a McD's in Canada circa 1995 – curious about its flavor, always willing to try new things, unafraid of strangeness and conventional wisdom telling her otherwise, her love of finer things (lobster) combining with her thriftiness (for $4.99 Canadian) – she comes back with my father to the motel room where my brother and i lie exhausted on opposite beds, on top of the shiny slick duvets, our feet dangling over the edges, shoes still tied

conjures the thought of my mother, the agency of ordering this sandwich from Atlantic Canadians, her biting into it, in a purple motel room with dark wood panelling, clutching the McLobster in her tiny hands, her subsequent surprise and relish, how my brother and i, interest piqued, rose from our beds, crawled on hands and knees to kneel next to her on the edge of the bed, to take timid nibbles at the edge of her sandwich, as she held it out to us with her tiny hands

how her approval could inspire our curiosity and interest and lead us to devour not just one but multiple sandwiches stuffed with artificial shellfish

how our mother's curiosity and fearlessness i inherited as far as it came to food but regrettably little else

how this action provided a window into understanding my mother, allowed me to imagine her young and new and unsure but willing, making a life for herself with my father, wishing to raise children who would have opportunities she didn't have, slowly carving out a path and a life through small, brave decisions – how will this taste? will it be bitter? is the meat real? can we trust it? – and these little decisions form little steps into futures we hope will be better than yesterday – where do i go from here? what do i do? who do i want to be?

- - -

inspired by Lorrie Moore's "How To Talk To Your Mother (Notes)" from Self-Help (1985).

tantalizing

right after publishing my last post, blogger posted this little ad, which was just interesting enough to slip past my threshold of awareness (i think it was the words book and blog together that caught my eye).

hold the phone! i can turn my blog into a book!? this is what i've always wanted!! how exciting! i don't particularly like having some website do it for me from a drop-down list of generic templates, but still, that the possibility exists is pretty winning. i had always thought that when i got around to making the blog into a book, it would be more of a zine and involve hundreds of photocopies of text glued to larger pages with drawings and sketches in the margins, handbound together to be mailed out as gifts.

funny though, considering i've already got instant publishing. shucks, blogger, you so good to me!

-stef

alligators in the sewers

i know, it's been a long time since i've posted, and shame on me for letting this fall by the wayside. before i forget, HAPPY 2010!(it's going to rock so much harder than 2009, don't you agree?) and also, a recollection of a dream i had last night:

my friend Dave who incidentally goes to grad school at UCLA (but who i haven't seen in months despite living just blocks away from each other) asked me to come over to check out this crazy-looking condo he was thinking about renting for him and his new girlfriend, who may or may not have been pregnant. when i got there, my immediate thoughts, i remember, were "sweet dang! how much money does a grad student at UCLA make?!" – because the place featured impressive (albeit confusing) post-modern architecture and, the real point of interest for me, an expansive lagoon/swamp/"koi pond" underneath the deck. this is what i felt most obligated to check out for my friend. i tip-toed closer to the water, and observed the alien-looking marine plant life, as well as some strange movements on the surface. i saw some kind of mechanical alligator head, which looked like a wind-up toy, but then i couldn't be sure, so i got creeped out and discouraged from venturing a toe into the water. i searched the depths, murky and deceptively deep, looking for fish and now, alligators.* i informed my friend that i believed water of unknown depths to be dangerous.

we moved further along the deck and i observed fins skimming the water. i looked on closely, tensely, awaiting dolphins or sharks. first, dolphins, and i thought about friendly swims with porpoises. but shortly after, sharks emerged too, and i thought of thrashing water and sharp bites on the ankles. i delicately lowered a shoe'd toe beyond the level of the deck, offering it up to the depths below to see how eager and hungry the marine ecosystem below me was, but Dave snatched me up before the sharks and alligators did.

we moved inside as my friend told me how much his new investment was going to be, "$500, 000 for rent." rent?!! i gasped. you can buy a house in kentucky for that much! ah yes, but he reasoned that he really wanted a nice place for his gf and "baby?" to live, and i concurred that, despite the potentially dangerous lagoon in his backyard, living with danger and a body of water nearby could be a pretty satisfying experience, albeit a uniquely LA one (and already attainable, at a much cheaper price – ah, the glories of private property ownership!)

we moved inside to his artfully minimalist living room and sat on his firm couch, and his dog came up to me and wrestled with my leg. i then remarked on how impressively wide and large his dog's head was, and told him what he had here wasn't a dog, but a polar bear. i cautiously played with it, then watched as the dog and another animal my friend seemed to be domesticating (an otter? a fox? a bear cub? i don't know, just that it had a red body and a furry face) started making out.

---

in the dream before that, i believe i was wandering around the city of chicago, looking for a place to stay while i was there for a conference. i had a map, but the lines showing streets were gone or faded and all i could see were the names of streets floating on a page, guessing at their intersections. my parents came and met me at a corner bakery where we talked to some business man in a suit and tie about staying in one of his many properties in the city but he seemed unconvinced i shouldn't just be homeless and continue wandering the city for the entire weekend.

---

earlier this week (or last week, as today is monday) i had another dream where my family was trying to swim across a river. i made it across and was looking down into the water, watching alligators swimming up to the shore, bellies up and skimming the surface, then flipping off the bank and catching things in their arms and legs. my dad was the last to swim across the river and i watched as he got closer to the bank of the river, at the same time an alligator came near enough to flip off the bank and onto my dad, its body sinking him into the water and swimming away with him. i woke up terrified and gasping, as if i too had been drug under water.

---

i looked up the symbolism of alligators in dreams, and Bella, "the voice of women" writes:

alligators and crocodiles in dreams can signify 'hidden danger'--a situation that you are aware of on an intuitive level but are not acknowledging in your conscious mind. This can be a simmering situation at work, a untrustworthy person, or sadly, anything that you can't really see coming but which strikes out of the blue and without mercy.

i don't listen too much to psychoanalysts, even tho i once wanted to be one. i don't read too much into my dreams either (i have a record of outlandish, vivid dreams that are more exhilarating than they are revelatory) – i have at least one intensely vivid dream a night (that i can remember).

that is to say, i don't write about this for any truth-seeking reason, but merely as an exercise in recording. and, writing. and also: because they are fun to remember. (but, since i mentioned it: stressed thinking about school (applying, attending, working at) and possible future lives, the dwindling winter break and how much i miss being home and particularly in this house, with my family, and the fragility of life and how delicate each moment is but how destructive we can be with each other in spite of life's fragile moments...)

much to think about, and it's almost time to sleep.
-stef


*once when i was very young (maybe 10?) my family went to vacation in south carolina. my dad, recently returned from a business trip to florida, brought me and my brother matching mickey mouse hats (my brother's was blue and green, and mine was red) and we wore them out onto this long wooden deck where the locals dangled pieces of chicken meat on metal hooks, in order to catch crabs. crabbing was an intricate process, from skewering the chicken bits just so on the hook so that the skin and fat would dangle off the bone enough to dance enticingly in the water, to sensing the slightest bit of tension on the rope, signifying the crab's eager tugging on the bait (you had to time it just right so that the crabs had enough of a taste to want more, and then slowly hoist them out of the water so you could slip a net under them), and we enjoyed it for hours on that wooden deck. until suddenly, i felt a sharp tug on my line, and looking down, ready to bring my catch up, realized i had baited an alligator. it was thrashing and tossing its head around, the rope coming out from between its teeth and leading up to the deck, where i had tied it just in front of me. terrified, i yelled for my dad, who came rushing to my rescue to wrestle the rope still enough so he could cut it. i remember feeling like the whole deck was going to come crashing down into those alligator-infested waters. in the excitement, my hat got knocked off my head, and i watched in horror as it fell down into the water.
that night, lying in bed, feeling i had just survived an alligator attack/ avoided an alligator eating, i imagined my hat, the hat my dad gave me, lying at the bottom of the swamp, alligators swimming around it, mickey mouse winking up at the surface, forever suspended in time.

haikus

i taught my students how to write haikus this week:

my dog is big and
my chewawa [sic] is smart cool
it can dance.
-Oscar

dogs elephant cats
i have a german shepard
i like all my dogs.
-Francisco

if Mississippi
gave Missuri [sic] a New Jersey
what did Delaware?
-Aaron

Ms. Aguayo and
Ms. Lee are friends and they both
nice and cool both teach
-Victor

sweet vanilla ice cream is good.
food: chocolate chip cookie.
hungry, eat candy.
-Johnny

do the test do
your best or guest [sic]
on the lousey [sic] test
-Diamond

asteroid hit earth
a temperture [sic] was rising
the ground was glowing.
-Francisco

army bombs people
people shop at a walmart
i go to the beach.
-Jose


i bet you didn't know i taught beatnik poets, did you?
-stephan!e

proposition: blogging as life preserver

i've had a lot of conversations lately in which my motives for blogging were called into question. and though i find it hard, usually, to think so metacognitively about the reasons for my writing, i realized today that it's a tree in the forest kinda thing.

if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?

i remembered this post i wrote in the beginning of my foray into blogging, and how i was thinking about death and the ability of the internet to preserve experience and writing.

this digital age is a mausoleum, which is a word i love, because it sounds like what it means: "death museum." we produce so many artifacts of our lives, but at the same time these artifacts exist mostly in the ether. we write emails, dozens a day, these all go into mailboxes, each of us with mailboxes thousands of emails full. there's a permanence but also an invisibility to this kind of production. while it exists and accumulates, it so easily disappears. someone dies, their email address and inbox goes with them. all those MB's of virtual space and productivity and creation lost, irrecoverable. and here, i hesitate again, because this virtual medium has the capacity to recover and revive, just as easily as it can be erased.

i want to remember things clearly, i don't want things to fade!

the wonderful thing about this is that digital technologies are allowing us to preserve little mummies of ourselves all over the interwebs (which sounds kind of gross, but admit it, you're fascinated!) snapshots of life and moments. and the complexities and details of our lives will read, in retrospect, so much clearer than any other materials of the past or present. just as the clarity with which we see things has improved with the emergence of digital imaging and hi-res photography, our understanding of the past will be significantly clearer because of the details we are writing now. we are constantly writing and re-writing our own autobiographies, from the moment we self-publish.

and isn't that such a beautiful thing?

-stephan!e

(written sunday, 3.22.09, 9pm PST)

layer cake

night-swimming has become the one indulgence i allow myself every week. and it’s a good choice: it’s exercise that’s good for my bad hip. i like to secretly race the older macho men in their speedos, observe the human body as it moves underwater (the water aerobics class in the shallow water brings to mind images of elephants swimming, clumsy limbs thrashing through water), everything illuminated and given a milky glow by the underwater lamps, like submarine headlights. and at the end of my laps, i like to float on my back, my ears submerged in water, imagining myself out at sea in endless darkness, navigating by the stars.

the delightful thing about swimming, and perhaps swimming in a pool in particular, is that it heightens your senses. you feel reconnected to yourself, notice the movement of your own body, feel your spine lengthening, listen to and feel your own breath. you feel graceful and amphibious. and the low resistance silence provides such a stimulating contrast to the other 95% of my waking day.

the most alluring and troubling heightened sense? smell. chlorinated pool water has the magic ability of collecting all the smells from the surrounding day, and stacking them on the water, like layer cake. as my face skims the surface of the water for a breath, i open my mouth and suck in the potent smells of the day: sunlight and sunscreen, burnt tire rubber from LA traffic, manure and mowed grass, the charcoal smokiness of the barbeque down the street, leaves and a smell i associate with crickets, sweat, skin, b.o.

sometimes the smells are so thick and rich, i crinkle my nose, sneeze underwater, or get teary-eyed, like i’ve just sliced into an onion. other times, they remind me of the way it feels when you’re at summer camp, heading back inside over tall grass after a day in the sun, the mixture of grass and dusk creating a haze, and you feel safe lingering in it.

this digital life can be tough to keep up with...

this break from school has been blissful. i've been staying up late eating and drinking with my parents, reading and writing creatively for the internet, looking at beautiful pictures and sharing music with my bro, watching strange movies my mother picks out just to share a warm space in the house with her, playing tennis with my dad. and i bought a swimming cap with a pirate skull on it, hilarious. i am dreading my return to LA, a lonely existence, meals by myself, traffic, tons of school and work. i'm going to miss laughing and smiling so much and being immediately happy when i wake up.

another day and i'll be gone. back to empty echoes in this large house.

i wish i had more time to write and think, read and write, read and think. i've been collecting as many thoughts and memories as i can, hoping to piece them together like a quilt of my life. i imagine collecting these stories in a small book i'll make over the summer, and shop-dropping them all over the country (and Europe!?) when i'm travelling with Ben before returning for year 2 of this ill-advised stint in teaching.

i'll begin posting some of these short, Brautigan-style stories here, very soon.

-stephan!e


UPDATE (1/14/09): i've decided to name the future book/zine "ey!Q" – a phrase with no particular meaning, but i like the combination of letters, aesthetically, and i like that it was a typo (intended to say "hey!"). you could read it "eek!", or "I. Q." as well. anyway, writing from ey!Q labeled with the tag "eyQ." check it.\

i am in a battle with time.

notice i did not write "race." this is not a race against time. it is a battle.

since i have been home, i've been remarkably productive. reading a lot, writing a lot, drinking lots of tea. i can't recall being so happy doing so much in a long time. i'm sure there is something to say here about the nature of work and motivation, and i could reflect on this further, but why? let's move on. besides, Alfie Kohn has written a book about it already, and he's far more witty with such observations.

i'm happy at home because i do not need to worry about cooking constantly in order to eat, don't need to clean up after anyone other than myself, my room is overtaken by stacks of compelling fiction rather than stacks of student papers. movie ticket stubs litter my desk, rather than bills and gas receipts. in the absence of reminders of work, i am free to forget obligations and pretend i have the luxury of free-time and the privilege of hedonism. it's miraculous.

my mind un-cluttered of work, creative ideas gained space to grow. it was as if everything was suddenly a trigger for a short story or a memory. a common sight from my window, a sound in the distance, a combination of foods. everything seemed alive and vibrant!

i am trying to enjoy it, while using the time to churn out as much writing as possible, while i still have the energy and the passion for it. since i started, with the commencement of the new year, i have written 14 short pieces (found here). not too bad, and time still remains!

more soon,
stef

English majors

i am beginning to wonder if my interest in significant others has found basis largely in the fact that, on some level, i know what i want and i know what i lack.

it's my way of interpreting the knight-in-shining-armour myth: i'm not looking for someone to rescue me, but to provide those things i'm missing in my life.

it occurred to me this evening, as i was reading a book review written by a fresh-out-of-college English major, a little older than myself. i found myself envying her, spending her working life reading books and writing snappy articles about them, this is the life i want. her writing seemed easy, relaxed, honest. i read my blog posts from the last three years and sense distress. my writing has taken on the clunkiness of function: burdened with academese and pent-up sentiments. never really beautiful. i wish i had the literary rhythms of someone who spends her days and nights reading and writing about literature and poetry. i spend (most) days and nights studying or teaching from textbooks, examining education law, feeling miserable.

then i found out this person whose article i was reading was recently "laid-off." and i recalled my mother's voice telling me when i was a teen: "you can't be an English major. you need a specialized skill no one else has. anyone can read and write." fast-forward: i find myself getting certified to teach special education. it's tedious, aggravating, soul-sucking work, but at least it is specialized.

when i think about all my relationships – only 3 so not enough to be conclusive, but enough to suggest a pattern – the allure, in all three cases, was that they were literary. the first boyfriend was a poet, the second a journalist and creative writer, my third and current boyfriend a rhetorician, creative writer, English teacher, aspiring journalist.

this somehow makes perfect sense. i always wanted to be a writer, my oldest and most consistent memories are of writing short stories, carrying hand-made books and pamphlets around in my pockets, trying to start novels. but now i will never be a writer, not in the literary sense, and so my fascination seems to have found other outlets. my early lust for literature, redirected.

i'm sure there's a Freudian interpretation for such a phenomenon, but i'll settle for Lacan instead, who used to say: That missing love—that lack—is a wound that drives you to fill its emptiness. None of this drive has anything to do with true love, except for the fact that, in all the arousal, true love is missing. (source)

moment of doubt #103

why are fridays always the worst days of the week? why can't i get thru a week without having one really shitty day? why do i feel grateful now that it was only one really shitty day this week and not every day? is that a sign i'm improving, or just getting used to it?

today, tears. my lunch and my conference turned into one long, uncontrollable bawl-fest. the tasty sandwich i made was ruined with the taste of salty tears and frustration.

within 15 minutes during my lunch break: behavior incident report/reflection, parent phone call (to tell a concerned mother that her son skipped detention with me 2 days in a row, he now needs to come after school on Monday for tutoring with me b/c he is failing my class), a meeting with the science coach that devolved into tears and an unintentional commitment to 2 additional observations in the next week. = STRESS.

what didn't happen (that i really needed most in order to forget about my massive fails and so i could go into 6th period with a clear head): phone call to boyfriend. music. baby carrots.

but, i guess it's a sign of my growing callousness* to the situation that i didn't think about quitting. i just lamented the fact that this isn't getting any easier, and i'm not sure it ever will. (*i use the word callousness not to mean that i am not caring, that is certainly far from the truth. i mean it in the way that i think of callouses or blisters from breaking in shoes: it hurts at first, but then you grow this thick skin around it so you can't feel it any more and you can deal with it, keep walking. functional non-feeling.)

anyway, to give you a glimpse into my life, below is the behavior incident report/reflection i wrote before breaking down into tears. i keep a log of every incident, and it is now becoming apparent that the notebook i am using may be too small. i write in it almost every day. this is ostensibly ridiculous.

---

friday oct 17

i spoke with my student marvin after school and let him know that i wanted to talk about something. i told him that all i want for my kids, what i think about most, is their happiness and their well-being. i want to know that my kids will be happy and live good lives. that's why i'm a teacher. i come to school every day and want to see that my kids are succeeding and doing well in school, because those are the ones i know will be safe and happy when they are older.

i told Marvin that i think he's smart. he can do the work when he really tries and works hard at it, and that makes me happy because it lets me know that he has a chance at a good life. but, he can throw that all away, he can lose that if he doesn't do his work. he and matthew are both really smart and can do the work, but sometimes when they sit together they start acting like fools. they both need to learn to be in a class together and not lose focus on their work.

i asked Marvin why he was suspended on monday. he said someone was trying to start fights with him so he "socked em." i told him he needs to get his anger in check because if he doesn't now, he's going to have more trouble later in life. i told him that people who can't learn to control their anger go to prison, i asked him if he knew what that was like. he said he didn't. i told him that prison is a lonely place, you sleep on concrete, you don't get enough food, and people usu. die in prison. i don't want that for any of my kids, and i don't want that for him. i told him that doing well in school is his ticket out of that life, that it's his chance to make something better for himself.

i almost started crying when i told him that i want all of my students to have the best life possible. i want to make sure that they have all the opportunities they can, that they have choices. they might not realize it now, and they might even hate being in class, but they need to understand that i'm doing this so that they can enjoy their lives later. but i need them to work hard at it, because i need their help, i can't do it alone.

--

Matthew - wouldn't do his work, Ms. Cue came to me after break and said that Marvin and Matt. were sitting on the stair banister and she told them to get down for their own safety. she said they looked at her and just crossed their arms, acting dumb or like they didn't hear or understand her. Matthew pretended he couldn't hear her (that he was deaf). when i told him to sit down, he defied my authority. i got super-pissed, and told him once, told him again. then i told him to "sit his ass down." he didn't. i told him to grab his things and come with me to the office. i took his folder, and marched him down to the dean. we sat with Dean Dixon, and Dixon talked to Matthew about how this behavior needs to change. he is down there 2-3 times a week. if he can't get this under control now, he's going to have a ton of trouble down the road. Dixon and i explained to matthew that we are here to try to HELP him and he is taking it for granted, seeing our concern as weakness and trying to get away with stuff. we told him that if he chooses to take it for granted now, he would only suffer more when ppl don't care to help him later. we told him if he wants to avoid being homeless, he needs to work hard now and ensure his future.

i asked Dixon what happens next with M, what is the next step? clearly suspension is not a good route, he enjoys being out of class. i wonder now if he acts out on purpose just to get out of class. i asked what kinds of interventions we can take to help Matthew and get this problem under control. Dixon said he had called home before and would call again (matthew's father is ill and dean dixon talked to him about being "a man" and helping his mom take care of the family, why would he want to cause them extra grief?) and Dixon asked if i wanted him suspended from class or school. i said i'd like to avoid suspension if possible, but would like to refer him to a program, possibly anger management and work habits, Boyz to Men was mentioned too. Dean Dixon said he would try those things. i also told him to call the mom for me and tell her that if this happens again, i would like her to come in and sit with him IN CLASS until he can self-manage his behavior.

Dean came back to my room with Matthew after a few minutes and i was back in the room. dixon asked to speak to me to the side. he said he called matthew's mother, and all he could hear was the TV turned up really loud, she couldn't really even hear or understand him and he felt he wasn't getting thru to her. but he informed her of what would happen if matthew misbehaved again and he said he would follow up with her.

when he turned around, matthew was not doing his work again. Dixon asked him to get to work. Matthew said i cussed at him, told him to sit his ass down. Dean Dixon said he should have heeded my advice.

writing personas

i got a wonderful email from my friend Kathee today. i don't get a lot of friendly correspondence lately. i can't even remember the last time i got an actual letter in the mail (i think it was in 7th grade when i still had a pen pal... oh blissful youth!) all i get now are bills, paperwork and forms to be signed and mailed back with checks attached. even my email is being overrun by work-related things: grad school assignments, work-related meetings or conferences, reminders about bill payments and obligations. i like that technology enables me to be so easily and rapidly connected to ppl, but i hate the immediacy and omipresence it gives to my work, too. no one just sits down to write a friendly letter any more, to ask "how are you?" and share a story. i wonder if email will soon become the same?

i have self-identified three writing voices, and sometimes they overlap and/or take over each other:
1) my academic self – the tone and word choice i use when writing an academic paper. this has recently been subsumed under 2) my personal reflective/critical-reflective voice – the perspective i often assume when i'm actually writing, when i'm trying to be creative, when i'm thinking of language in a careful way, when i often have something to say and i'm being deliberate. that is, my "blog" persona. and then there's 3) casual/conversational – when i write the way i would probably speak if you were sitting with me face-to-face, if we were sipping cups of coffee (i'll be drinking tea) and we've been friends since childhood, or had just reunited after our returns from long adventures and were just sitting down together again to share our experiences. these voices, i've noticed, have come to blur and bleed together over time, which is a good sign, i think. lessening of the Cartesian dualism, onward toward symmetry. i'd like to think of my blog as an endless conversation (tho regrettably one-directional and monologic) between old friends about recent adventures.

which is what brings me to today's post. as i was writing a response to Kathee's wonderful email, i could see myself steadily switching my voice toward writing a blog post, too. it's not that the email i sent her wasn't meant as personal correspondence, but it generated an honesty that i thought deserved a wider audience.

and so, i give you updates on my life in L.A.:

I've been having a hard time adjusting to being a teacher, but I think about you from time to time and wonder how you'd handle similar situations and it makes me feel sane again. I'm a pretty shitty middle school teacher because I let the kids run amok and I get frustrated when I have to explain the most meta- things (over the summer, it was context clues. This fall, it's place values and times tables. I've been trying to shy away from the "it's this way because that's the way it is, so memorize it," but with math basics, it sometimes takes too much mental energy to explain everything. And the kids just get more confused when I try to tell them that multiplication is just like addition, but faster. So, onward...)

I know it's bad to have favorites too, but I definitely do. I hope it doesn't show in the classroom, but I can imagine it does. There are kids who are so cute and smart that even when they do something wrong, I just laugh and smile, and then another kid will continuously get something wrong and I'll get upset. It's hard not to, but I know it's HORRIBLE practice. I try to be fair, and I try to be consistent, but I'm not very good at remembering.

L.A. is sunny and warm. It got cold last night and I was worried that maybe it was finally going to start getting colder and I didn't have enough sweaters to wear to school yet, but sure enough, it was back up to 85 in the afternoon when I left work, and I felt silly for wearing my only sweater in that morning. It's weird to live in a place where the weather never really changes. It's actually extremely aggravating, because I can't feel time passing any more, and I want so desperately to feel the seasons change, so I can understand bodily that I will be going home soon.

I'm making friends. Mostly with people in my grad classes. Beyond work, that's the only way I meet people. My colleagues at school are pretty great, our science department is young, hip and friendly, the math department doesn't know I exist, and the special ed department is the crowd that really means business. But they're all great people, and I'm pretty happy with where I work. Whether intentionally or not, I've managed to successfully distance myself from most of the TFA crowd. I don't think we really get along. I kept hoping I'd find at least one really cool person who shares my views on education and activism, empowerment and the need for education reform, but I've yet to find those kinds of people. It's been really difficult for me to be so removed from that kind of community. I hadn't realized how much of a comfort it can be. It's funny, now that I think about it, because I guess at Miami I really came to depend on that intimate and distinct crowd of people who I knew I could have an intelligent conversation with, and we more or less had similar views and critical perspectives, or would at least be knowledgable enough to challenge each other. There were so few liberals and progressives on the Miami campus, that we could really build a sense of community and connection thru political interests and delight in being politically different. I don't know if it's because most people in CA are liberal-minded, or if because there's more diversity they take it for granted, but everything here seems so dull and uninspired. There's no fire, no energy, which surprised me for a while but then it made sense. I don't even think I'm going to vote this election because my vote won't swing anything. I can't find anyone to talk about politics with because they all feel indifferent. If I'm not talking to someone about work or state standards, the conversations turn to traffic, neighborhoods, or getting drinks (we can't even talk about the weather because it never changes!)

Anyway, I've made a few good friends in my grad classes, people who keep it real and let me vent to them about our work and our grad program. It's nice, but I desperately miss Western. I find myself missing it most at meal times, or when I have moments outside to walk around and I long for a bike ride and think of you and Will and Susan, and how we had some good bike rides last year and wonder if we'll ever be together to ride around Southern Ohio again. It makes me sad, I think I underappreciated that space when I was actually there. I imagine coming back sometimes, but I know it's different now, and the ways in which it's changed sound awful. It makes me sad to know there's no returning to that place.

... Sometimes I really wish I had gone straight to grad school instead of teaching, I imagine it will be hard to go back to being a critical student of spectacularization after even two years of the "real world." It's such a crushing place...

-stephanie

dessicating + de-sexing

from the pages of a notebook, which i sought to represent as closely to the original hand-written version:

i've noticed a weird vibe about the ppl here. i'm struck by how attractive everyone is:

tall, leggy blondes; thin, well-spoken women with perfect bone structure in skirts and stilettos all the time

but what's remarkable about it is there is nothing really attracting about any of them.
none! and it occurs to me: they're too perfect, they're almost eery

it reminds me of Vonnegut's short story "Welcome to the Monkey House" and the suicide mistresses (/waitresses?) and how they were required to dress in skin tight body stockings and knee-hi boots, but no one was attracted to them & they weren't sexual beings themselves b/c ppl were doped up on these numbing pills [that made them lose all sexual urges]

and it seems to me it's the same way with [the women here]. everyone is so obsessively focused on [a] "mission" that they're blind, deprived of their basic humanism, dried up and numb

i feel like since i got here i'm feeling myself become... a prude/ dried up/ sapped of sexual urgency/ desire or spontaneity or fervor... it's hard to say

but you get closer to what i'm thinking if you think about it this way: sex as a ferile desire/ need/ a wild passion/ an urgency/ an animal veracity/ferocity that grips you, right? something a little depraved, perhaps a little messy, a little too animal and a little too human

= too much reality and rawness for this environment, which is drying up all our sexual/human urges

i think of corporate suckers, how those poor bastards spend so much goddamn time in suits, in meetings, in these glass facade buildings [spending all day repressing their human needs and desires] so that all they wanna do when they get back to their posh hotel rooms is don a pair of lady's stockings and fuck each other doggy style.

or, i think of school teachers we've all had, those crusty old spinsters who we pitied on some level as kids b/c we knew they were [probly] terribly alone and had probably never known a night of real passion in their lives.

and i wonder: is that what i'm getting into?

-stephanie

(as i wrote this i listened to "the twist" by Frightened Rabbit, off their album Midnight Organ Fight and one quote kept recurring at exactly the right moments: "i need human heat."

i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. i need human heat. ...)

oh yeaaaah...

making good on my promise to make 2008 the best year EVER, i finished writing chapter one of my thesis today, at 10:33 pm. and at 22 pages - plus notes for chapter two, an appendix, works cited page (containing no less than 24 sources) and a table of contents - i have to say, i'm actually quite happy with it.

what's more, i find that i really enjoy grappling with all the complex connections between democracy, education, and market ideology. especially fun was the section on democratic philosophy, in which i got to teach myself about classical and liberal republicanism, having never taken a poli sci class in my life!

anyway, it's done. and i'm half relieved, half scared, because now the brutal waiting begins. will Bill like it? only time will tell... i really hope he does, i slaved away at it, hunched over at my little ottoman desk, my books in piles around me. my back hasn't been the same in weeks!

now i'm stretching out for the first time in days, and taking a real deep breath. i'm cleaning up my space and trying to remember what it feels like to have a life again. weird, really.

let's hope all my effort wasn't in vain,
stephanie

p.s. and what's more, all those creative juices flowing and i finally got a title for my thesis!
"ACTUALIZING THE DEMOCRATIC PROMISE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION." bam, baby!

QUIT SPLEENING ME, BILL!

EAT YR SHORT SHORTS AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

an update from the front lines of my senior project HELL (Bill litters my first 30 pages with hyperbolic vitriol, even though the dean of my college loved my use of personal voice, Bill believes there is "no room for introspection in an academic paper." pls, Bill. just b/c you don't have any inner feelings to explore doesn't mean i shouldn't be allowed to reflect on mine! anyway, check out my response, after this):

Stephanie,

The good news is that your words flow smoothly and (when you're not caught up in leftwing jargon) your writing is engaging; also, you're clearly passionate about your topic, which draws readers in, and you connect your personal experience thoroughly to what few sources you use from the professional literature.
The bad news is, as my in-text comments indicate, that you start by skating along the boundary of an acceptable senior project (making heavy use of an extended personal statement in what should be a substantive chapter) for the first six pages, only to veer off into an anti-intellectual rant on page seven at which point you abandon (consistent with your rejection of formal education) connections to professional literature, adopt an uncompromising left-wing political stance by page nine, and descend on page ten into a no-holds-barred political diatribe. Much of the rest of the chapter is about Stephanie and what few sources you even acknowledge are exclusively from the student organizing political literature.
My impression is that you started out trying to be responsive both to the academic demands of the course and to your own political/educational commitments, but you got caught up in and carried away by the rhetoric, and decided to say "to hell with the demands of formal education." It's also evident to me that you've made no attempt to research any sources that might challenge your ideological convictions (or even your presumptions about facts), and you have no intention of writing for anyone other than those who already agree with you. Even-handedness and persuasion be damned!
You've got a choice to make. You are, of course, free to reject Western's academic standards and write a totally biased, ideologically based, reductionist, anti-intellectual, anti-interdisciplinary diatribe—in which case, to be consistent, you must also choose to avoid being tainted by a bachelor's degree. Or you can decide that, maybe your brief is not against all of formal education—after all, you worked hard to save Western, which offers a formal education—and perhaps you can gain insights that would be useful skills for activist organizing by learning how to engage in formal scholarship about social activism, write a project that meets the academic standards of the institution, complete the requirements for the degree, and graduate. We discussed this choice quite openly at the beginning of the semester, and I could have sworn you decided for the latter. Did you change your mind?
Normally I would return a draft this unacceptable and request a revision before our three-way meeting, but my hunch is that you might benefit from talking with us (again) before starting your revision. If, of course, you wish to revise. The choice is yours.

Bill

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Dear Bill,

After spending most of the evening and morning reflecting on your recent comments, I can see where you are coming from, and understand that my writing failed to convey a persuasive argument. I don't believe your vitriolic tone was justified, but your use of hyperbole was perhaps necessary to get me to understand my own distasteful use of exaggeration.

I admit that I erred, for once, on the side of punctuality, deciding to try to meet the deadline before I was ready to submit a thoroughly reasoned and researched paper. I compromised the content and quality of my paper, in addition to my reliability as a narrator.

I would like to point out that the senior project is a learning process, and I am certainly not opposed to learning from my mistakes. I am finding my voice along the way, and though it's not always the voice of reason, I would like you to respect my efforts in the process, and not be so quick to dismiss me. Furthermore, I believe education should be a collaborative process, and your consistently combative approach to my work does little to encourage my continued engagement. I hope you will take my feedback as seriously as I am taking yours, and reciprocate my efforts to change.

That said, I'd like to thank you for your comments. I look forward to our continued discussion tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Stephanie Lee