existential crisis #2

i have a major problem and that's that i can't convince myself, no matter how hard i've tried, that going into "educational leadership" at a phd level will actually change anything or allow me to act on the kinds of changes i want to work for. all the programs i look at talk about "organizational theory" and "leadership studies" and i can't help but feel like i'm going to be going to school to study how to manage and micro-manage, rather than teach or create social movements. this is the problem i had with education that made me want to get into the field, but is now keeping me from entering into it (as if i'm not in it now?) becoming "a serious (i.e. phd-toting) academic" in it.

every single program i read about talks about organization, student affairs, administration, and governance, and that doesn't sound even vaguely interesting to me. is this what i'm looking to sign up for? to become the stuffy administrator of some school district or college? no thanks. i just want to teach some radical social change theory. where can i beef up on that?

seriously, if anyone has info, drop it below. if i read one more boring course description about organizational theory i think i am going to slit my wrists.

observations on education

i don't know if it's that i'm so busy i don't have time for intellectual stimulation... or if it's b/c i'm constantly in school so my intellectual ideas run out much more quickly, but lately i've noticed i'm not quite the innovative intellectual i used to be. even my writing is leaving something to be desired. my grammar is getting on my nerves: the overuse of nondescript "very"s and "really"s and "is" phrases and hanging prepositions, the lack of innovative word play or complex sentence structures. i wonder if my writing has gotten simpler and duller as a result of constantly being around (special ed) 6th graders and administrators, or if it's really true what they say, that middle school teachers are a subset of failed intellectual, stuck teaching the same standards and boring lesson plans year after year b/c they lack the intellectual daring to succeed in academia.

of course i don't believe this at all, since from experience i can say that teaching is one of the most demanding and difficult jobs anyone can ever attempt. but i can't help remembering my own criticisms of education classes in undergrad and grad programs: that it seemed to me most education classes weren't that educative in and of themselves, that their practicality diminished the excitement of the learning process, diluting inquiry and exploration to formula rather than potential. and so it continues in my experience as a teacher, no different on this end of the spectrum, and in fact worse, as i have become a cog in this indestructible machine of an education system i so strongly detest and contest on a moral and philosophical ground. even if i were a pipe bomb i would only take out one of its arms...

what i mean to say is that i'm really scared that when i'm done with my 2 year commitment, i'm going to leave and not know where i belong any more. i know for sure this is not what i want to spend the rest of my life doing. in the first 3 months i am already fitfully worn out on this routine. 2 years is enough, thanks. and i don't think i can commit to education reform as i had planned. these months have shown me an even uglier side of our American education system than i had ever wanted to see, understanding now that even the strongest and most determined of teachers can enter this system and come out washed up, burnt out, and ready to do the least revolutionary and radical thing if it means keeping a job, keeping administrators at bay, and getting only good enough results so as not to draw more attention to oneself than necessary. i understand now the desire to do the bare minimum if it means less friction stopping yr acceleration to the end of the year. i'm giving up ed reform; this system is broken.

i could say more on this, i had a list – the defeating false determinism in lesson-planning, my desire to remove myself from formal ed as much as possible, being mired in my own education (what am i getting this degree for?), wondering what this means for my future studies, research and career paths, esp. now that these things matter to someone other than myself – but sadly i have reports and projects for a graduate class to write and i'm listening to music which is making it difficult to find my own words. it's senseless work, but i have to finish it before i can return home in 3 glorious weeks (i just hope these days will pass smoothly and with as little trouble as possible, please!)

-stephanie

she lives!

(that's me with the "proof" of my finished senior project! alt. title reads: "Idiots and Jackasses: How American Public Education Fails to Meet Its Democratic Ideals." you like?)

hello everyone!

yes, this is stephanie, returning to you from the edge of death and emotional/psychological/existential despair, to say that

1) I AM DONE!
i finished the project after much duress, at noon on Monday, April 14th, 2008. i had to haul a lot of ass to get there, and it was certainly not the easiest thing i've ever done (i slept 10 minutes on Sunday night, 2 hours on Saturday, 3 hours on Friday, ate maybe 4 meals in that expanse of time), nor the easiest to understand (i wrote 25 pages in one night!), nor the most believable (i wrote 25 pages! in one night! with only 10 minutes of sleep!). but i did it! I AM SET TO GRADUATE! (*fist pump and hip thrust!* *yeah!* let's have a party now, pls?)

2) there's still so much to do...
i am presenting my thesis at the undergraduate research forum in 4 hours, and i have nothing in the way of visual aids or even mental preparation. i hope to just show up and be able to garble something remotely intelligible.
the "dress rehearsal" for my big thesis defense in May is coming up on Thursday, which is also a little too early for my taste. i don't think i can whip up a powerpoint and a formal presentation in one night, especially since i still haven't slept more than 5 hours since i finished.
(my body is def taking a toll from all this. on Monday, when i wrapped up writing, my face looked like i'd been chainsmoking 2 packs a day since i was 14. i was so haggard, i couldn't believe i was still alive. and sadly, i still haven't gotten a chance to completely rest up, i've been editing and formatting the project, and working on SFS stuff again, and bouncing around meetings. i can't wait until next week, when i will hopefully be able to sleep and eat to my heart's content and maybe even read a good book again!)
AND, there's still another chapter i want to write, because it just doesn't feel done yet, but i don't know if i have the patience/time/energy/will-power to do it. i'm telling you, i have a disease! i need to just put it aside, let it wait for the dissertation!

3) THANK YOU!
thru all of the trials and tribulations, this blog has really been a huge source of relief for me. it's been a place to informally write what i'm thinking, and a nice opportunity to step away from the project, remember that i can write, i just need to be less editorial about it and let it flow.

and, to know that there are ppl who read it, who enjoy it (don't you?) and who care, well, it really puts the sunshine in my (as of late) dark and dismal existence. (i can't tell you how glad it made me, as sick as this sounds, to know that ppl were worried and wondering if i had died. i'm so glad you care that i live! shucks, yo... thanks!)

and, i wanted to thank the blog itself, as odd as that sounds, because it literally saved me. when i lost all the data on my computer (all my writing from college, all my photos), i didn't know how the fuck i was going to finish my thesis. there were diagrams, little nuggets that i'd written in little .rtf files, little things that i couldn't possibly think to recover. some were screen shots of websites long lost and forgotten. some were passing thoughts that i couldn't reconstruct or re-place.

but then i remembered that i had posted most, if not all, of these things on the blog! and sure enough, there they all were, neatly labeled and organized, even showing me which dates i'd created them, so i could make accurate notations in my citations list! hahaha, what a beautiful thing!

anyway, i should really get back to work. i'm running around to meetings and presentations and interviews all day, and then i'm teaching class until 10 pm (which i really need to prepare for), and then i gotta find time to put a powerpoint together for tomorrow... oh geez, it's looking like another all-nighter week...

when everything is said and done, i hope there will be copious imbibing and heavy snuggling.

until then, yours in life and virtual death,
stephanie

first meltdown of the year

i can't go on like this...

i feel so stupid. so many ppl go thru much worse than this. ppl go to war, ppl get cancer, ppl lose loved ones, ppl die. and i can't just sit my ass down for 3 hours and write my thesis, something i've wanted to do since i entered college and the only thing i have to do to make sure i graduate.

what is wrong with me?!

that's what i keep asking myself. i used to be so good at writing papers, i could sit down for hours and just write endlessly until i was done. i was so clear-headed, so facile with words, concise and cogent. i wouldn't outline or anything, i would just organize the paper in my head, sit down and it would come flowing out of me. it was like magic. i didn't even have to take notes on my reading, i could remember exactly where on the page i read it, could remember what page, and if i didn't, it would be no problem for me to flip back through the book and find it.

i don't know how time has shifted things in the opposite direction. now, i sit amidst piles of books, can't keep them apart, can't find a simple quote or even remember which book it was in, let alone which chapter or page it was on. i feel i am losing my mind.

i've watched winter become spring become winter become spring again. while nature was wantonly blasting thru the seasons, i've been watching her work at my window(s) and feeling older and lazier and more and more incompetent. i'm an old woman now, i can' t do this...

i feel horrible, not just because of these things, but because this thesis really is something i care a lot about. that's maybe why it's hard to do this "right." my friend Brandon described it once as feeling like he wasn't "good enough" to write his thesis. like, the topic required such care, such delicate treatment, that somehow he felt unworthy of handling it. like he wouldn't be careful enough, didn't possess the mental dexterity, didn't have the proper amount of time. and i feel all these things too, but also i'm feeling a little beat up in the process.

it's kinda like making love. i mean, what is this, if not an act of love? i wouldn't have picked something this impossible to condense into an 80-page undergraduate thesis if i didn't love it (right?...) you can't make love with someone(/thing) if you don't feel it loves you back. or at least that there's some chance of mutual connection. you ought to feel like you're doing things because you genuinely care about them, and that the things you do will matter. but really i just feel bullied and used. i am giving so much time and care to it, and it's always fighting me back. and then i'm struggling to be faithful to the task. i'm distracted by the weather, by film projects, by all the fun new literature i could be reading instead... this is an abusive relationship. i feel battered, my esteem is suffering, i feel ugly and inept, and lo, i'm suffering performance anxiety.

well, it's all intellectual masturbation anyway...
-stephanie

recovering sadness to find happiness again

i discovered this when i was sorting out my old emails. it's hard for me now to think of a time when i might have penned these words, but then again, i remember that i was deeply unhappy at the end of the last school year. it seems like so little time has passed between then and now, but then, i suppose this is true. and yet a lot has changed...

[in an email to a friend, who had lost a grandmother and was having an existential crisis of sorts, and on the nature of love and loss...]
I have dreaded the loss of loved ones all my life, and it has really affected the way in which I go about living and thinking about my relationships. Have I ever told you that my biggest fear when I was a kid was that someone I loved would disappear from my life, without ever knowing how I feel about them? Death and goodbyes seem to have the same effect on people, and I dread them both.
As a kid, I remember trying to imagine death, and I imagined a great emptiness, a blackness and blindness, and I imagined forgetting and being forgotten, all those I loved losing memory of me, losing traces ofthe relationships we cultivated in life. I would cry and cry, watching tear drops falling into my lap, big wet splotches on my dress.
I recall something of the last semester and it having this horrible aftertaste of sorts, how awful it felt to me after I left. I think a lot has happened to sour my look on life in the last few months of school, I guess with Western, and my being sick, and then personal things too, I think I became a very different and changed person in those final days. And it terrifies me, because I don't know that I much like the person I have become.
I suppose it's that I see myself as a much more callous person than I would like. I've become hardened to so many things, which I would like to take back, but I don't know if people transform as easily as that. I'm upset because in being so terrified of being hurt, I'm hurting my self.
[friend's name deleted], it is so good to hear from you again, and I hope this is not the last of our correspondences. This is not a good bye, nor even a good night. It's early morning here in Chicago, and I prefer that instead. Good morning, friend! It is going to be a better one now... Love, Stephanie

...
my friend dylan remarked to me that after watching some of my videos he felt that i was deeply sad or depressed. i spoke with him in chicago when he spent the night, in a way that surprised me in its intimacy and made me wonder why he and i had never spoken in this way to each other before.

we talked about the nature of conversation, about the importance of truth and spontaneous curioisty and candidness, of coming out with whatever is on your mind, paying no mind to contexts or retaining a conversational narrative.

i believe we achieved a greater understanding of what we want from our interactions, from our loved ones, of our loves. we discovered a greater meaning to voice and to voicing desires.
...

i need more conversations like that,
stephanie