Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

"Where wonders, wars, misfortune
And troubled times have been,
Where bliss and blind confusion
Have come and gone again."

--"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," modern translation

The Courts and the Constitution on Free Speech

So, for COMM class, I have to write and deliver an oral presentation on the use of speech codes on college campuses and the issue of free speech itself. My political position on the subject was not chosen by me but for me for the sake of the class. Milo makes all sorts of allegations about students who request or need safe spaces and trigger warnings. He says bluntly that such students should be expelled.

If the Courts and the Constitution give the right for a student to say something ignorant and/or offensive, then it gives me the right to say, "Hey, I don't like your use of that word [i.e. like calling sex workers 'whores']. It's not appropriate for a classroom discussion. Don't do it again. Don't be an asshole." I also have the right to resort to name-calling and demeaning language in response. If you can do it, then I can do it. What needs to happen is open-minded and often liberal students to stand up to a bully, and tell him/her to watch it.

"Beautiful, clean coal..."

--President Trump at CPAC

"I inherited a mess."

--President D. Trump at CPAC

"So, pole dance your way to liberation," says Julie Bindel, mocking the idea that any woman would actually choose to be a sex worker.

"Who wants to settle down with one person? It's so awful."

--Milo Yiannopoulos on gay marriage

The Responsibility of Suffering

I feel like certain destinies are lined up for me: I'll always be at risk for another psychotic episode, which was perhaps comparatively the worst affliction to ever happen to me, short of my two serious suicide attempts, when you're crazy, no one likes you, and you're isolated in your craziness because all of these evil doings are fixated on you and you can't escape, and then predictably, I will suffer from chronic back pain with varying degrees of severity. One day, recently and it was a Thursday, I was running through the house, desperately looking for pain killers, but couldn't find any, and I felt strongly suicidal--like if I'm not out of my pain now, I will kill myself in a gross way. Luckily, I called my mother crying, I didn't tell her about my thoughts of ending my life, but only of the pain, and she listened. I got through the day. However, it proved to me how fragile all of my good sense is. I feel better when I know I have Norco's safely trapped in a bottle--just in case the pain becomes wildly uncontrollable. It's there, I can depend on it. If you want to look at my situation one way, you can say that I'm lucky I had almost nine years of freedom from severe, noncancer, chronic pain. I escape what I saw at the time as my responsibility as a person to suffering. I conned the judges and the jurors, and successfully fleed from my punishment--for a precious amount of time.

I told my mother that I was not as resilient as her. She's dealt with chronic pain since she was 31-years-old. I told her that I'm not as strong because pain feeds the insanity of my mental illness. They dance together down the ol' dirt road, and they share secrets like clandestine lovers. They suck each other's blood, and swoon from weakness. They are desperately addicted to each other.

And some days, they put me away. They consume me, and they dance in the street, naked like a buried corpse underneath the sea.

Today, I fight battles on several fronts. I suffer.

The Alt-Right And Why It Matters

For the most part, I enjoy listening to Milo Yiannopoulos because he represents a extreme view, ideas some of which I used to hold when I was younger and a Christian, but also because he brings up some really good points that I had either not previously thought of or thought but was embarrassed because I am now a liberal (and in some ways, an extremist myself). One of these issues that he brought up during a talk on a TV show was the debate I had with my poetry professor about how do you prioritize women's rights with freedom of religion? I'm speaking specifically about Muslim women, although the same argument could be applied to some sects of Christianity. My poetry professor didn't have a good answer, and I don't either. If a woman wants to keep herself covered because she is modest and that is in line with her culture and religion, I have a hard time saying that she shouldn't do as she pleases, even if I think it's somewhat backward. We can easily condemn what we don't understand, a fallacy I believe most of my former classmates fell into.

As They Say, Fat and Happy

If you've ever been diagnosed with bulimia (like I have) in the past or even in the present tense, then you know the secrets and the downsides of dieting, including at extreme levels.

I'm at Stanford at their psychiatric outpatient clinic, a feat that wouldn't even been possible if it wasn't for the fact that the Medical Director of the Psychiatric Hospital ward haven't written me a recommendation and appealed to the doctors at Outpatient to take me on as a case despite the fact that I live about four hours away--which was directly against their policy.

For the most part, the doctors at Outpatient focus on my caffeine intake. On my latest blood work results, it showed that my cholesterol was high, no doubt a side effect of the antipsychotics I've taken over the years. The resident psychiatrist warned that if my levels didn't go down in about six months, then they might have to take me off of Seroquel, which would be hugely inconvenient for me. The attending physician, however, disagreed with her, and said that if high cholesterol was the worst that would ever happen to me by taking antipsychotics, that I was doing very well. "We can treat the cholesterol," he insisted.

Unfortunately for me, I asked the resident doctor if I should lose weight. They never brought up the subject of weight loss with me on their own, probably aware that I already know it's potentially a problem, and somewhat embarrassed by it.

The resident psychiatrist, of course, said yes, and then she gave me some tips on getting the weight off, all of which I knew. She told me to eat only 1,500 calories a day, which comparatively is a very small amount. She told me that sometimes I should just go hungry.

This is ironic because last time I was hospitalized at Stanford, the doctors there were concerned I didn't weigh enough, and therefore prescribed me protein drinks as snacks, as often as twice a day (the second one, I always threw away without digesting it). But I've gained a lot of weight in the past year. Technically, according to the BMI, I am slightly overweight, a classification that I'm not comfortable with, and one of which I've never previously been included. I was watching an advertisement for "Girls," in which one of the characters complained, "I'm overweight and I have a mental illness!" I thought britterly, join the fucking club.

While I can complain about the weight gain, and trust me, I do every day, every time I walk infront of a mirror, and heaven forbid! All that time in the shower brings me to shame--I cannot forget the luxuries Lexapro and Seroquel have afforded me. I've been out of the hospital almost exactly a year, and the past year has been the best I've had since probably 2007. If you ask my mother about the situation, she thinks that the weight gain was well worth it. Like most other patients you hear talk about this particular subject, the side effect of gaining pounds while on antipsychotics, they will all say that they'd rather be stable and fat than skinny in the hospital (at my thinnest since jr. high, I was psychotic). Even my vanity allows such a conclusion.

Last time I met up with the LSU Professor, he gave me a hug, and said while I had my physical struggles to bear, he was so happy to see me so happy. I know what he meant by this, for the first time in a really long time, I can laugh at myself and at the oddities of life.

All the Things I Should Get Over With

On Thursday, Luck messages me through Facebook, asking if I wanted to hang out. I said, "We could meet up on Friday." He agreed. We picked a bar near where I live, and everything was settled.

Unfortunately, Friday came, and I had a paper due at seven pm for poetry class, and also, I had forgotten that I had more homework due at one pm for my COMM class. So, I called and canceled with the LSU Professor because I knew I couldn't take out the time to be with him. In addition to my deadlines, Mom decided to have company over, and told me to clean up the house. I managed to get everything done, even though I wasn't very happy about it, and had to take the equivalent of 4 Vicodin's just so I could get up and moving around.

I took a shower, and headed towards the beach to meet with Lucky. We were supposed to hang out at five pm. Well, five pm showed up, and then five-fifteen, and then finally five thirty. I went home. I thought about TXT-messaging Lucky to tell him thanks for standing me up, but I didn't. At almost seven pm, Lucky messages me, "Hey so we are meeting Friday in a week right?"

Hmmm. No. "I was at the bar waiting for you tonight."

He offers to make it up to me. I explained that I didn't know if I wanted to do that, and I would think about it.

"Are you mad at me?" He writes.

I don't respond.

Later that night, he writes, "Get over it."

The Love Letter and Its Unintended Effects, Part V

I guess this means I'm not getting a letter of recommendation from him.

The Love Letter And Its Unintended Effects, Part IV

Harry astutely pointed out that the English instructor didn't do anything wrong, and said in his recent email, "Mr. [the English instructor], though, never gave you reason to think he was looking outside the twin boxes of his marriage and his job. If he had hit on you when you were expecting a grade from it, it could indeed have been called sexual harassment. He avoided this--more coldly than was necessary, I'd say. Nor were you doing anything wrong by falling in love."

The Love Letter and Its Unintended Effects, Part III

Usually, when Morpheus does write me an email (which he hasn't since roughly September of 2016), his messages are in the style of free write or stream of consciousness, except that not all of the sentences are there. Instead, he writes in fragments, as if to himself. He doesn't clarify nor does he try to explain. In some ways, this is rather intimate. You gain the sense from his emails that he doesn't put in a lot of effort beforehand in choosing his words, so you assume that it's relatively honest and fresh.

The English instructor writes in direct contrast to this. Every word is carefully tailored to be politically correct, is adjusted as to procure the correct response, to seem distinct while also remote. In general, the emails are thoughtful, if not a bit overly formal. Perhaps it would seem impossible for him to change his style, as his diction may not be a direct effort, but something that happens below the surface, more of a hidden mechanism for self-protection and of routine. My COMM professor writes similarly, even more blunt, and he's a very friendly and outgoing person when you're face-to-face with him, either during class time or in his office hours. He makes eye contact, he smiles, he makes jokes, and also extends his help.

To ask the English instructor to write differently is perhaps not out of reach for him, but may be simply very disconcerting for him. We learn from an early age that how we speak, how we write greatly influences how other people view us, even if they're getting the wrong idea. We can appear aloof and intellectual or we can seem silly and somewhat ill-advised. A few wrong punctuation errors in the beginning of a college essay, and we have labeled ourselves as rather thoughtless, careless and lazy--even if we spent hours upon hours on just a few pages of work.

That being said, I recognize in general, the English instructor chooses his words deliberately. So, the use of the word "weirdness" in his last email to me caught me off guard. "I would request that any visits do not serve as a means to discuss your previous two emails. Just stop by to discuss how your classes are going and the writing is developing, with no clarifications, explanations or weirdness!" (direct quote from the English instructor's last email)

Perhaps I should mention that while we can debate the good sense or lack thereof in sending an email confession of love to an ex-professor, there was nothing in my second email labed "One Last Thought" that was at all inappropriate. It was just a plead to be treated like a human being, instead of a grade report card. So, why would he lump that message in with the other, more extreme essay of my feelings for him? Are they equally undebatable? Are they equally troubling? I would argue "no" but I do not have the privilege of being inside the English instructor's head. My request to be heard as a woman and as an individual is not shocking nor even unusual. In fact, most people, once you get over the first "hi! how are you's" want what I asked for, whether they say so directly or not.

When I first read his email (the one containing the quotes above), I felt like someone had grabbed my beating heart and squeezed--hard. A cliche, but one that is fitting. My reaction centered one just one word: "weirdness." I immediately began to question myself, am I weird? What about me is weird? Why is emotional intimacy, in varying degrees, why is that "weird"? Is that an issue about the English instructor or does it say something about me?

I realize that I can be intense, even to my own demise, as evident in my outbursts in English class, and my inability to just stay in my seat and take it. Instead, I got pissed off and hurt, and ran away. Otherwise, I don't see myself as a particularly emotionally expressive person. My family recognizes only one emotion, and that's anger. There's a lot of anger milling around in the house, and little else. What remains surprising to me is that after one of my parents is angry and shouts, the other spouse simply in large part ignores what he/she has said, and pretends like it never happened. Despite having a mental illness, I pride myself on the ability to "fit in," or at least make the appearance of being normal. Perhaps this is not how others view me.

I've really never seen the desire to communicate with someone on a frank level to be "weird," although many people are deeply afraid of it. The truth is, you never know what kind of reaction you're going to receive when you confess something deep and dark about yourself to another human being. He/she could be kind and caring or dismissive and hurtful. You just have to try.

What was obvious was that despite the first paragraph in his email all being about me actually showing up to office hours, and how that was okay, he didn't want me to see him. I tried my best in my response to avoid sounding angry or to make matters worse, but of course, I probably proved his point: I couldn't be counted on to remain casual and calm.

"Dear Mr. [the English instructor],

Obviously I make you uncomfortable, and you are concerned about the prospect of me saying somthing to make you even more uncomfortable or what you may consider inappropriate for the setting (i.e. your office). Frankly, you don't trust me (maybe it's unrealistic to ask that you do trust me). Moreover, I have offended you and your sensibility. 

I will not drop by your office because I don't like the fact that I must have a 'trigger warning' taped across my forehead. I think you are relieved I said that.

By the way, two people can have an intellectual discussion about sex, and it is the very idea of sex that startles you so.

Most of the time, though, during office hours, I don't try to get into my married professor's pants. I usually save that for more private conversations.

If I were in your position, I would have just said, 'no, don't come.' 

[Jae]"

Hospital's Hell Hallway, Part II

On Tuesday, I finally got the nerve to ask the poetry professor if he had read my poem, "Hospital's Hallway." The rest of the students had filed out as it was the end of class.

"Yes," he looks at me and smiles. "I thought it was great. You should definitely submit it to [the community college's contest], and elsewhere....It was very brave."

During office hours today, he explains that perhaps getting my poetry published (he encouraged me to write more and often) would help me find meaning in my struggle with mental illness. Certainly, I've always felt when it came to my prose, this was true. If you can somehow manage to find others who will connect to these experiences, then the world is a smaller, more humane place to live in. Also, it will alleviate the suffering of people who deal with the same because they will have another voice to get them through the night.

"It's amazing," the poetry professor says about "Hospital's Hallway." He reviewed it again, and offered some suggestions, and then asked that I bring it back so he can look at once more.

Throughout my life and my unofficial writing career, I've always imagined that poetry was one step beyond me as I highly idealized poets (including the English instructor in this), and then as I grew older, I envisioned incorporating the elements of poetry into prose, to step up the language in creative nonfiction--as a way to set myself apart from other writers. Sometimes, although it is rare, I actually meet that goal. I write a few paragraphs of prose that I feel has the power of poetry. But most of the time, I am content with explaining matters in a much more direct manner.

"You really should write more of this," the poetry professor says while placing his hand on his heart.

Thoughts on "The Waste Land," Part II

The poetry professor confides in me while we're walking to his office from the classroom that most students don't care about learning to write well or better than they do, and therefore don't ask for immediate feedback.

I had previously over the weekend sent him a draft of my paper on "The Waste Land" and "The Second Coming," and we've been haggling over it ever since. The poetry professor provides intense and extensive comments, all of which I took into consideration, and most of the changes he recommended, I made. He caught passive language, he improved my selection of verbs, and also told me that my essay was "too abstact," which I took as a big compliment. In poetry analysis, you want to be abstract.

This paper brought me much misery over the weekend. I literally spent six hours or more sitting in front of the computer while relaxing in my bed, and staring at a blank screen. Occasionally, I would switch to reading, and then I'd come back to the white, empty Word doc. It was extremely annoying because I knew I couldn't produce the level of interpretation that I had read from books in the library on "The Waste Land," I simply did not have the education behind me nor the experience of dissecting works. But, finally, after the muscle relaxer had partially worn off, I was able to concentrate and produce a few pages.

"That's a great line," the poetry professor says as he's leaning over my essay while sitting in his office's chair. He's referring to "...'The Waste Land' describes the loss of religious faith through the image of 'after the agony in stony places,' as if there is no soft, maternalistic comfort in landing when one free falls from grace."

The Love Letter And Its Unintended Effects, Part II

Most likely, we can classify repeated, rebuffed advances made by someone towards us, especially in the work place and coming from someone in a position of power, to be sexual harassment. However, what standards are there for the personal relationships between a student and a professor? Obviously, it would be immoral for a professor (male or female) to ask a student to give a sexual favor for a improvement in a grade (or the total grade, whichever). However, at what point is it improper for a professor (either sex) to ask a student out on a date or express attraction to him/her? Is that okay? Probably my professor friends would disagree with me on this, but I trust in the maturity of faculty and of students, but saying that while it's inappropriate to go to a student in this manner, is it really unethical if the professor can take the answer "no" and move on? What about if the class is over, the grades are in, then is it okay for a professor to express fondness for an ex-student? Most people would probably say, that's fine. I'm not sure the official policy of the community college I attend because I've never asked, but I do know the rules for the University, and I assume it's all the same.

However, the dynamics are different if it's an ex-student approaching a professor because that student is stereotypically in a position of lower status. Maybe in real life, the situation doesn't work out that way because a student could engage in a smear campaign against the professor if the relationship didn't work out or he/she was rejected initially. How seriously Administration would be interested in all this, I don't know.

In reality, I've never been in this situation before, although I have expressed my feelings (albeit, platonic) for both the LSU Professor and the Advisor. I also understand that most people, single and otherwise, look at marriage as an absolute, and that any action taken against that absolute is a cause for shame and regret even though it's near impossible to be in love with your spouse after five, ten or fifteen years. A few people do it, and it's always those people we like reading about or watching on the TV. However, the reality for most of us is that at some point, you're going to be tested in your faith for the institution of marriage, and does that hold up under close examination and/or under the threat of temptation? A lot of people virtually throw away stability because they are driven to desire novel experiences--it's not the person who they are in love with, but rather the thrill of the unknown and of the passion that comes with new sex or a new relationship.

Posing Questions About The Love Letter And Its Unintended Effects

When does a confession of feelings become sexual harassment? A question I've been debating the last 24 hours. We have a right to our emotions and express of such, correct? However, I suppose that one of the boundaries is if my description of desire makes the person receiving the message uncomfortable or demeaned in any way. Perhaps, then it's wrong. Certainly, this can happen inadvertently or without a malicious purpose.

Most of us during our short lifetimes, we have to deal with people being attracted to us when we are not attracted to them, and handle the complicated issue without causing undue hurt on that person just because we're not interested. If everyone has rights to their feelings of love, then we have the responsibility to explain ourselves (and sometimes the lack of mutual interest) in a way that poses the least amount of threat to another's well being.

Life On Pain, Part V

For a couple of days, I was actually feeling better, and thought perhaps I was over the worst of the pain from my new disc bulge. However, today was a major setback.

"I know what it's like to be in pain and have no pain meds," my mother told me yesterday.

I called the Neurologist (the same one who prescribed me morphine years ago) on Thursday, and apparently I got her on her cellphone (I thought it was just a confidential voicemail). I asked her if she would take over my pain med management. She told me that wasn't part of what she usually does. I can understand her hesitation because she hasn't seen me in months, but it would be great if she could prescribe me with pain killers (I don't need morphine), thereby releasing my GP from any responsibility.

Life On Pain, Part IV

Mom walks into my bedroom, and says, "I'm not mad at you. I just want to know why you didn't tell the doctor you needed pain pills for the weekend. He wouldn't have left you without help."

"I'll call him on Tuesday," I respond.

"At least get him to give you some until you meet with the surgeon. He will understand."

I don't doubt my GP's good intentions. He arguably saved my life once when I was very sick from what Stanford called "being toxic." Whenever doctors use the word "toxic," it's generally implied that it's serious. My GP noticed the problem before anyone else, including the doctors at county mental health who had brought on this ailment because they were overprescribing me medications for my mood. He called me at home on a weekend to help me, and told my mother (who answered the phone) to take me immediately to the ER. However, as I was told by his office staff, my GP in general doesn't prescribe opioids.

With the huge backlash from the "opioid epidemic," most doctors are very much afraid to hand out pain killers. Despite the fact that I've never gone to medical school, I find this to be utter nonsense. Many doctors wrote in research articles and essays for the media that opioids do not improve life satisfaction over the long term. They often said there was no evidence of it. Well, guess what? I found a paper written by a graduate Ph.D. student who did her own research through interviewing chronic, noncancer pain patients and doing her own surveys--and she found not only her own work to support that opioids help even with years of use, but she also found research from other doctors who conclude that opioids increase well being over long term and can effectively manage pain.

So, I've been avoiding calling my GP because I find it to be humiliating. The assumption now is that you will become addicted, even though a small minority of people actually do so. He prescribed me 10 pills of what is essentially Vicodin (I'm used to stronger stuff), and it lasted me four days.

Dreaming of [Jae], Part II

"You know I've had this situation arise a couple times in my career," the LSU Professor tells me as I sip my beer. "Where I had a student who definitely wasn't as frank as you, but the implication was there, and I've had to tell them, 'This is the only way the university can toss both of us out.' " He praised the English instructor's response as "that's exactly what he should have said."

Dreaming of [Jae]

"Listen, he may dream of you every night, but he has to feed his family," The LSU Professor tells me, and he's talking about the English instructor's dedication to his job, which is at least partially based on economic necessity, other parts are probably revolving around his familiarity with the works he teaches, and also his love of teaching itself (he loves his students like I love my professors, in other words, just based on experience, we get along well with most--and I've never heard a student say a bad word about him).

Thoughts on "The Waste Land" And Other Poems

"You're a good writer," the poetry professor says as he's looking over my paper on "The Waste Land" and "Second Coming." He's smiling this smile he usually wears. He seems to genuinely enjoy being a community college professor (according to my COMM professor, the pay is better at the community college as opposed to the University).

He tells me that he looks forward to reading my poem ("Hospital's Hallway"), and that he appreciates my participation in class. The poetry professor never mentioned our debate on prostitution, and I didn't mention it either.

He's grown on me, in the beginning of the class, I didn't know if I would like him. Despite the fact that the class is on poetry, the poetry professor isn't afraid to dive into social and cultural issues; he's particularly sensitive to feminist topics. "That's how I make it relevant," he explains to me. He admits that even he doesn't read poetry on his own, outside of class. He explains that the death of poetry was caused by writers like Eliot, who refuse to find material that is relatable to its audience. In "The Waste Land," there is a message that is common to us all: our spiritual barrenness in a post-WWI world (just wait, Eliot! There's WWII), and in modern Industrial Revolution and by consequence, materialism. But does his typical, average, every day man see that message? Well--

But at the same time, even though we don't think uneducated people can understand "The Waste Land," we also naturally dismiss this concern and call it great literature, a classic in fact.

As writers, perhaps we are charged with being one step (or two or three) ahead of our readers, to give them cause for pause.

What is obvious in "The Waste Land," and I should somehow include this in my paper, is the fact that Eliot was insecure about either his dick size or his ability to attract a woman or both. He finds that women scorn him--but why?

Ethics, Part II

Of course, as I was thinking about it one night, just before falling asleep, I remembered that towards the end of my stay in New Jersey, I would occasionally make up excuses to drive to see Dante while we were at work (at different tire stores), but while I was there, I was unable to look him in the eye, afraid that he would see how I felt about him. I'm sure that he probably interpreted that as if I was being cold. Which wasn't the truth. I was very fond of him, and attracted to him despite having a boyfriend, who I also intended to marry (but who would not marry me).

I tried to use this logic to explain why the English instructor goes out of his way to avoid looking at me, as I've written about this multiple times before. What if he was so attracted to me, he was overwhelmed?

I quickly ruled that out, because while I was a young, relatively innocent, shy twenty-one-year-old when I met Dante, the English instructor just recently turned 40 and time occasionally gives us confidence in dealing with the opposite sex (or same sex, if you're gay), and if you see him interacting with a large group, he gives no trace of modesty.

One of my fondest memories of the English instructor occurred while I was in his Engl 156 class during the summer. We were all in groups, talking to each other, and he was in the next desk over from me. I'm feeling unusually friendly, and I say to him, obviously teasing, "You know what? I think we're about the same age."

He looks at me, and smiles, "Usually when I have my class, I don't ask how old my students are." He ignores me after this.

After class, when it was just the two of us, as I'm usually the last one to pack up my bag, there's an unusual silence. We're politely avoiding conversation.

"Thirty-nine," he says while walking across the front of the room, looking down at his feet.

For a fleeting moment, I'm confused. Fucking 39? Was that like a quiz answer that I missed? Oh, that's how old he is! Older than I thought. 

But looking at him, you would have thought he revealed a dirty secret such as a foot fetish or maybe something a little more extreme like choking his partner in bed or even enjoying giving golden showers.

I just learned his age, and it felt like a hand had reached out and grasp my shoulder.

Ethical Questions on Student-Professor Sex

I didn't even mention the English instructor, and for some reason, on this particular day, the LSU Professor tells me of love stories between students and college teachers. He tells me of a fable about one professor from a CSU up north who falls in love with his female student, and leaves his girlfriend for her, a girlfriend who he had intentions of marrying.

"They had sex?" I ask, referring to the professor and his student.

"Yes."

"That was the start of trouble," I reply.

We move to the patio outside the little fish cafe, and the rain is coming down hard, and the plastic shield next to the table is whipping sharply. It's scaring Beck, who is on a leash next to me.

"You said something about a falling out with a professor," The LSU Professor continues.

"You didn't seem that interested in it," I say because I told him that weeks ago.

He sighs. "We were talking about other things."

So, I tell him a rough story--my initial email explaining how I felt, the English instructor's response, and then my last email in which I argue that I'm not just a student.

"I think you should contact him after a while." He rationalizes that the English instructor's email was a "maybe," which really means "yes." He asks if the English instructor is tenured.

"No." I didn't think the English instructor's email was a "maybe," I emphasized to the LSU Professor what the English instructor had originally said, which can be briefly summed up as "As I've always been, I would be happy to speak with you about literature, etc, but if you do not respect the fact that I'm an employee of the college, then I will have to terminate contact." He actually used the word "terminate," and being he's an English professor and a writer himself, he knows that "terminate" has a harsh, negative connotation. It's a verdict--no room for debate. I found the whole email odd because he never mentions in it (although I more than allude to this in my previous email--even telling him not to respond, as I've previously written here in this blog) that he's married, and has kids. Before he uses the word "terminate," he pitches this to me, explaining that I'm "self-admittedly sensitive to criticism." Sure, about my writing, but I would like to think that I'm adult enough to handle someone rejecting me romantically and/or physically.

He makes a face, one of worry. "That's not good." In other words, tenured professors can more easily get away with fucking former students--they have their ordained place in the system. "He has five kids? Do you know how many balls he's juggling? Do you want him to juggle one more?"

"I told him in my last email that I didn't want to make him uncomfortable, that that wasn't my intent."

"He's uncomfortable," the LSU Professor concludes.

"I don't want to complicate his life."

"That's not your decision. That's his."

"Yes, but I've found that men make poor decisions in this area," I say, quickly ashamed of myself since I shouldn't say "all men"; it's an unfair assessment.

"You make him sound like he's Clark Gable. Is he handsome?"

"Yes," I answer simply.

"You have no idea how many students have said what you said. He might have a ready response."

I laugh at this. "Yes, cut and paste into an email."

"Yes! Right!" The LSU Professor says while smiling. "It seems like you still care about him."

I don't have an immediate response, "care" is a tricky word. I care about a lot of things, and a few other professors; this doesn't mean I want to sleep with them.

I had a dream about the English instructor a few nights ago. Occasionally, despite myself, he seems to invade me while I'm sleeping. I have a mental image of him from the dream down on his knees in front of me, touching my knees or my legs, and he tells me honestly that this is all it can ever be. I don't remember anything else, including my response.

"You don't know what his equipment is like, you fall in love with the equipment," the LSU Professor says casually. To most people, this would seem like a crude, crass comment, but coming from my best friend, it sounds normal. Like everyone evaluates the people they love by how big their tits are or how big (long) their dicks. Most people, from my experience, aren't really that concerned.

But there is a small bit of truth in what he's saying: if I had sex with the English instructor, and there was no chemistry between us (for whatever reason, and there are a variety of those), I would probably quickly lose romantic interest. Is that fair? I'm not sure, but I'm not the only one who highly prizes the physical aspect of a relationship. And in the past, haven't I been judge by "how good" I am "in bed"? I mean, wasn't that my job?

At the end of our meeting in the cafe, I offer to the LSU Professor that I don't have any class on Monday, and that we could meet again if he wanted to.

"Something might happen in between that time," he says.

"Oh, I could get a love letter," I say, referring to either the English instructor or to Morpheus.

The LSU Professor finds this humorous. "No, I was thinking more of a message telling you to meet him in a hotel room." He is also referring to the English instructor or Morpheus, jokingly, of course. He doesn't actually believe it would happen.

I Haven't Forgotten You

Of course, I think about contacting the English instructor, we across the same general area on campus at roughly the same time on Mondays and Wednesdays (while waiting to speak to my Engl 201C professor, I searched the wall of the English faculty hallway, and noticed the English instructor's office hours and class schedule as posted). I haven't, though, figuring perhaps he's glad to be rid of me. I'm fairly certain that he doesn't think about me as often as I think about him. I wanted to show him the first poem I've written in recent years ("Hospital's Hallway"), to see if he's even slightly impressed. He probably wouldn't be, and he would notice the fact that in it, I mix metaphors, which can be confusing for a reader.

I thought that I would send him a link, with no other words except "I got published in the New York Times," if my actual essay sends up on the Modern Love. To brag a little, and to show him that I was serious about what I said when I brought up going after the Times. But the odds of that happening (contacting him and/or being published in the Times) are slim to none.

Who is the Victim and Who Plays the Victim?

"What I’m getting at is that I was never a victim. My message to conservative students is that neither are you. The leaders and pundits who say otherwise are doing you a disservice. Sure, they’re getting a lot of clicks and selling ads by framing your struggle as one of an embattled minority silenced by the overbearing liberalism of academia, but that false equivalence is not helping you prepare for the wider world."

--Aaron Hanlon, "Advice for My Conservative Students," the New York Times

Life On Pain, Part III

My GP called me this morning, early, and left a message saying he had my MRI results. He mentioned a "protrusion" (that could mean several different things) and that he recommended I seek out a neurosurgeon, and he had a name to recommend to me.

I called the neurosurgeon, a few cities away, farther down south, that my father had used, but unfortunately the doctor doesn't take my insurance. I don't know who else to call. I've thought about making an appointment with Stanford Neuroscience Health Center, and in fact, I called them today, but hung up after being put on hold for a while (I needed to get to class).

I called my GP back, and only got a member of his staff. I explained (again) that I needed pain killers, and that I would look for a surgeon. The woman over the phone told me flatly that he didn't prescribe any class II drugs.

"Not under any circumstances?" I asked.

She told me she would ask him specifically about my case.

Eventually, I got my Norco prescription, although it's 5mg codeine, not 7.5mg that I'm use to taking. And he only issued me 10 pills (which will probably last me 5 days) with the idea that soon, I'd be someone else's problem. 

Hospital's Hallway

"Hospital's Hallway"

by Jae Jagger, a poetry class assignment

 “What are the voices telling you?” She poses

Over my head with her dire, diagnostic manual,

And her virulent vocabulary in a virtual, towering

Computer keyboard, bored

With me

“They’re telling me that I should die,

That I should hang myself in the shower.”

I travel the noble, forsaken path,

On repeat like the metal arms of the washing machine,

Spinning in decadent delight, fixed in solitary purpose, listening

To the swishing of heavy sweaters and socks and Secret stockings,

I travel the friendless path, up and down

And up and down, hell’s hallway

On the frozen, coolant ice rink, on its artificial brink,

White of tile flexing for my eyes

“Dive down here,” they say. “Die.”

Diddle a little with your life and its dull strife

I travel nihilism, up and down

The heart beating like old, worn out windshield wipers

During winter

I pass the guards and the generals and the post-love artillery

They hooked me up to the machine in a bunker for the brave

They set it to sizzle, brains like barren Holstein ground beef

“How do you rate your depression today?”

Always the same, difficult to obtain

Any noose for just a swing in the sultry shower

Naked like sex, numb like Norco’s aftermath

Just hung there

In the doctors' playground, children are just codes,
Pass out the pills for mania's merry-go-round

I can sing with my throat slit,
Gaping at God's damnation

Real Brief Encounters And the Romance Myth

“Here are your real brief encounters,” he said with a crooked grin, making fun of her romantic ways. Encounters, yes, though more like collisions, really, and certainly brief, but without the maddening joy, the dissolving of the self into something more than the self, the anguished longing afterward.

--"Matinee," The New Yorker, by Robert Coover

"You can't stay in bed all the time," my mother says to me, suggesting that I go to the ER tomorrow after class.

The Ironically Coffin-Shaped Bus of Immortality

Normally, when I read the New York Times or The New Yorker or the Wall Street Journal (which I pay over $30 a month for the pleasure of perusing it), I don't have a large reaction to the piece. I always appreciate each article for its educational value, as I've become more aware of all sorts of social issues that I previously had no interest in until the rise of Trump (I've been devotedly reading current events for about the past year). Often, one of the criticisms I have is that the writers of the essays (they're always good writers, but only occasionally do you read a great one) is the fact that at the end of the piece, they are forced to come up with a neat, compact conclusion, which comes across as being forced and/or insincere. A bit too tidy for the complicated reality of his/her point(s), and sometimes the authors revert to using cliches, which ruins the whole experience of reading the article to begin with. (I realize that there is added pressure at the end of an article to preserve a lasting impression upon the reader.)

Normally, when you read a journalism article, you know it's going to be pretty straight forward, just a relaying of information, and perhaps a small dose (or a large dose, depending on the type of piece) of an opinion, expert or not. When I read Mark O'Connell's piece, I was immediately impressed because he was using imagery, that of the bus itself and that of the surrounding environment including birds and other creatures, to highlight symbolism for our relationship with death and also with the forces of nature (which we may not like and rebel against). This is genuinely excellent writing when an author dares you to dig deeper into his/her work. So, as moved as I was, I searched around for a while, and finally found O'Connell's email address, and I wrote him a short message. He actually responded just a few minutes ago, and it was a very nice email.

If you haven't read it, please do.

Life On Pain, Part II

I've been staying in bed the past few days, changing my mattress into a tapestry of unkempt studious ambition and a little of daring chaos. My books and binders are spread all over the side of the bed that I never use. I feel better if I'm stretched laying down, and I can rotate relaxing and unfolding my legs and drawing them up again, one at a time. If I'm too quick, I get stabs of pain down my leg. Most of the time, my knees throb no matter what I do or what position I'm taking. The pills make my life better, but they don't completely remove the stabbing sensations or do much to blunt the pain of getting up and walking. Much less doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, like I did this morning.

Hit Back

"The state of mind you described in talking about your argumentation class -- that you could come up with an argument that would blow everyone else away, silence the opposition, be definitive for all time -- is exactly the state of mind I had whenever I wrote an op-ed column, and often when I wrote a book review. It's delusional -- your critics will never shut up; somebody will always find a way to hit back at you, But it's probably necessary to feel that way before you stick your neck out in print or in a public debate."

--Harry in today's email 

Sex Guarantees

"Take sexual reproduction itself. The reason we may even have two sexes, as opposed to just one gender that self-duplicates, is that constantly shuffling our genomes helps us stay ahead of the many parasites and pathogens eager to suck us dry. Sex guarantees the genetic diversity necessary to persevere in a never-ending war, meaning that you can thank disease-causing microbes and parasites for the opportunity to fall in love at all."

--"Microbes, a Love Story," by Moises Velasquez-Manoff, The New York Times

Life On Pain

Life narrows when you're in pain, you weave through the casual requirements for life, and you are left to play the Darwinian asshole in which only your needs matter, survival! And everything else, including other people, is secondary. You don't require other people, you don't even desire them, you only hanker for a quick, peaceful resolution, that moment when the pain ceases and the soft lull brings itself about, wrapping like a cat's tail around your brain in a gentle, feline embrace of calm connections, and every hair of the longest leg saturates the poison in your head, and deepens the pause of impulsive nerves.

Do a Little Show

"You know, if he wants to spend 30,000 on the college needy fund, I will even do a little show for him," I said to the LSU Professor as he explained that his brother threw away that much cash on restoring an old car (and he's not even finished).

Modern Love College Essay Contest - The New York Times [REVISED]

I think I might actually submit something.

It's going to have the gravity of "The Waste Land" except in a love story form (which, if you read it in a certain way, parts of "The Waste Land" is a very cynical and depressing tale of romantic interests and the resulting passionless, unfortunate sex that follows). It's going to be brilliant, the best thing I've ever written.

Right?

And then I will get into Stanford or UC-Berkeley because I am an already published writer with success written all over me, not to use a cliche because those are boring--but this! People will recognize my brilliance for what it is!

And then I will marry some charming, handsome, intelligent, completely self-indulgant and self-obsessed, macabre English professor (just like my first psychiatrist predicted), who tells me that love isn't found in sexual expression but in self-sacrifice--only to be inordinately tormented by the frequency of his own orgasms. So, he will only bathe once a week (to save on water, of course!), and refuse to drive anything but a used Tesla (that his parents helped him pay for), and he doesn't own a pet because he doesn't believe in the subordination of animals to human's will, and aghast! The idea of eating meat is shameful, very primitive and awful! Those poor chickens and lambs and, oh my god, have you ever seen a steer knocked over the head in a slaughterhouse? And yet he ardently believes in the death of fetuses whenever Mom or God chooses. Not that there is a God, because Nietzsche said that God is dead! And he will lecture only to hear the sound of his own voice as it echos off of the four walls in a classroom, sometimes to a room filled with five instead of three hundred--and never notice the difference. And he will, of course, write long, aching lines of poetry about the evils of American Exceptionalism, consumerism and materialism and the destruction of the world thanks to the Industrial Revolution (nevermind that he writes using an Apple MacBook, which is of course a product of our technological advancements). And then he will cheat on me with a student, but insist it meant nothing because sex means nothing. Even she doesn't show up to his talks on Romanticism Literature.

The Dirty Whore Argument, Part III

This was my late reply to my poetry professor concerning the topic of sex work:

Dear [Poetry Professor],
I did do a quick online search and found that yes, there are studies and research out there investigating the link between prostitution and drug use/addiction. One thing I do know after reading a book on addiction, and writing two research papers on it (which doesn't make me an expert or even educated on the subject) and subsequently doing a lot of reading about drug policy and social costs of addiction in addition to my own experiences with opioids, I have learned how complicated the factors are (environmental, social and genetic, to name a few) for drug addiction in the general population, or better said, of people who suffer from a substance abuse disorder. In other words, the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know, which happens to most of us.

So, I can't say why prostitutes may or may not have a higher incidence with substance abuse--is it directly from their job? From the stress of their job and their vulnerability to sexual assault? Or is it because prostitutes are more likely to develop addiction due to some factor that has nothing to do with their occupation? Is it due to the risk of arrest? Or an even better question, is it at least partially linked to the stigma surrounding sex work?

I know that people with mood disorders, I'm thinking specifically of bipolar disorder, have a higher rate of drug abuse and addiction, and there are a few floating theories as to why. One of the more prominent thoughts is that these people, patients, are proned to self-medicating, but could the picture be larger and more complex than that?

My point isn't to argue who is more likely to develop an addiction, but rather to highlight a resounding interpretation of those facts: someone gains very little understanding of what it's like to be affected by a mood disorder upon learning the link between that psychiatric illness and drugs. It doesn't give you a "crude overview," it is merely a data point. You learn nothing about the daily struggles of someone who has a mental illness, you learn nothing about depression or mania or psychosis or the terrible social consequences of this disease.

I would ask that the same conclusion be drawn about prostitution. Perhaps they do experience a greater suspectibility to drug addiction, but what does that really say about being a sex worker him/herself? Next to nothing. 

For reference and more data on the subject, I recommend SWOP.

"Ambiguity is the great force in literature, we all become our nightmares, and in silence, years later, we become our dreams manifest."

--my Facebook status from a few days ago

Do You Want to Live Forever? Part II

"I said I’d begun to think of the Immortality Bus as the Entropy Bus, the three of us trundling across Texas in a great mobile metaphor for the inevitable decline of all things, the disintegration of all systems over time."

--by Mark O'Connell, "600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself," The New York Times Magazine

Do You Want to Live Forever?

"Although I was not sure I wanted to live forever, I was sure that I didn’t want to go down in a blaze of chintzy irony, plunging into a ravine strapped into the passenger seat of a thing called the Immortality Bus."

--by Mark O'Connell, "600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself," the New York Times Magazine

The University Debate Team

I spent much of my morning in bed (I woke up at seven am with pain, and decided to take a Norco, and go back to sleep instead of attending therapy in town), and made it to my online class for COMM (Argument and Debate, officially) while still in my PJ's. The platform was slightly awkward, only the professor and a few students could speak in the conference "room" while the rest of us had to type like those ol' fashioned chatrooms of lore. I made my presence known by bringing up the "confirmation bias" and other questions. For a while, I believed that I was completely relieved of my pain, sitting up, propped up on giant pillows on my own queen. The only face I could see was the professor's, in a small box on the lower left corner of my screen. He was himself today, running his hands through his hair in his energized fashion, coaxing students to ask questions and to "speak," even though only of a few of us would do so.

At the University, he leads the debate team. While in class the last time, a week ago, I asked him if he ever "plucked" students out of his argument class for the team.

"Oh, sure," he said, explaining that sometimes he picked a student because he/she would be really good at it, and other times he picked a student because he/she was smart, but needed improved skills in the area of argumentation.

I was, of course, indirectly asking if I could join. However, he assured me that none such team exists for the community college.

I didn't reply that I was actually a university student, but the idea intrigued me. I could learn to write arguments so overwhelming and convincing that I would be invincible--that no one could insult me or my disability again. They would be afraid--both students and faculty--those who dared to cross me. In part, this is a fantasy. Even if I returned to the University (and I have desires to apply elsewhere), I don't know if I would have the time or the motivation to travel around and speak in debates. And again, I'm assuming these positions would be selective. You couldn't just show up, and be part of the team. There would have to be some type of try-outs.

I admit that I have a certain amount of practice in creative writing, but none such in deductive logic and reasoning. Despite reading about it and being lectured on it, I'm not quite sure what it means, or better said, how to apply it. I have no previous background in that discipline, at least none that I can remember.

Truism: Treat Pain

Sometimes when the pain is really intense, I take two Norco's, not together exactly but one and then another after an hour.

I almost went to the Emergency Room, but instead, I met my case manager at a local dog park, and watched Beck run around an open field, part of the property own by perhaps the wealthiest family in the area. I walked a little, and felt knives in my back every time my foot fell onto uneven ground.

Getting in and out of the car causes extreme pain, so I've talked myself out of grocery shopping on several occasions. I know what this feels like: like the year 2008, the first time I attempted suicide, promising myself that I wouldn't live in pain anymore. I drew a weak, faint line in the trail grounds. No more. But, of course, I survived, and miraculously I healed all on my own with no surgery. It was no less an act of mercy by God, who while He struck me with this agony, He also promised to cure me--as if this was all part of some rocky, burdensome trail I was led down, some glorious journey that would prove my worth as a human being.

I went to my GP, who ordered an MRI, and nothing else. He went into a long, labored lecture on how he felt uncomfortable prescribing me pain killers because they would interact with my psychiatric medications, and that it might cause kidney or liver damage. Reasonable concerns, but that wasn't the truth.

"You're not worried about the drugs interacting," I say to him. "You're worried about me getting addicted."

"Well, that too." He then tells a tale about a TV program that talked about how people get injured, start taking opiates, and then move on to "harder stuff."

That happens, surely, and there's an essential point of truth: most heroin addicts start out with prescription pills, about 75% of them. However, the vast majority of people who are addicted to opiates are not the pain patients--it's the people who have borrowed or paid for pills through friends and relatives. In a survey of patients with an opioid substance abuse disorder, only a little more than 14% got their pills from their doctor. A small percentage got their pills through a drug dealer.

The problem is, we really haven't come up with a better way to treat pain. I've read from different sources that morphine was developed sometime from 1803-1806. We have other pain killers, of course, but to my knowledge, all of them cause addiction and physical dependency. Which poses a public health concern. How do we effectively treat pain when we know that at least a small portion of our patients will develop addiction issues?

One major hurdle: you can't point out an addict before he/she actually becomes an addict. In other words, your GP can't sit down next to a patient in a fifteen minute window, and confidently say, "Oh, this person is an addict. No drugs for him/her." There are warning signs, of course, that you can look out for. My favorite, going back to my earlier point, is a person using drugs which were prescribed to someone else---big, red flag. So, my GP can't decide on his own if I'm going to develop addiction issues. He has no way of knowing. Most people recognize that if you don't need opioids to treat pain, well, then don't use them. They're no longer like candy that you can pick up at your local liquor store, at least not in the United States.

In other parts of the world, the situation is very different: people are crying out in pain that is not treated well or effectively. They need more morphine in hospitals and clinics because of immense suffering and lack of access to health care.

And, as some of us know, the price of heroin has been going down while the potency is going up. Our drug habits support all sorts of small communities and economies around the world.

A point I made on Facebook, which I will repeat here, is the fact that my mother's dog, Suki, injured her back, probably from jumping on and off furniture. She was in serious pain. If you touched her back, she would shriek. My parents debated taking her to the vet, but resolved those differences after I offered to pay for the visit. Initally, the vet was very concerned that her problem might develop into paralysis, but he was more concerned about her pain level. So, the vet suggested a morphine shot, an action of which I supported greatly. The dog received the shot. The next day when the dog came back to the vet for a quite follow up, he was still worried about her pain management and ordered a fentanyl patch for her leg, just to help her get over the "hump." After that, he suggested some steroidal anti-inflammatories in hopes that if the swelling went down, it would cease pressing on her nerves. Excellent strategy.

My GP performed a few, basic tests to see how I would react. My patellar reflex was almost completely gone. My foot didn't move at all. After that, he took off my boots, and pulled down my socks (after I explained to him how hard it is to dress myself), and touched my ankles briefly, asking me if I can feel anything. He ordered me to walk around, up and down the hall. So, I did.

He concluded that I would be fine in a few days, and that I should take Advil or Tylenol (by the way, even the over-the-counter dosages of Tylenol sends people to their deaths, hundreds every year).

Then the GP tells me to put my boots back on and meet him at the front desk. He leaves me alone in a grossly white examining room.

I have no recourse, I can't force him to treat me (in the medical sense) how I want to be treated if it's against his good judgment. He makes that decision for me. In a way, it makes sense, of course, because I've never gone to medical school, still haven't started my residency, and yet, he survived all of that and more--so he should be wiser than me. However, did he really have my best interests at heart or was he serving his as I struck fear into his small, metal, medical heart?

Why do we, as the medical community, naturally assume that an addict poses as a pain patient, in order to stroke sympathy and deceive with trickery the naive physicians who are only trying to help? Why? Because we can't see pain? We can't measure it from some crude picture? Lots of people have extreme back pain, and their lumbar MRI comes back perfectly normal. Are they liars or is it that we just don't have the ability to see into every nerve and muscle fiber? Why can't you admit that you are blind?

Here is a truism from the uneducated: treat pain.

But I Do Hate Them

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in December, Trump got to talking about Vladimir Putin. “And then they said, ‘You know he’s killed reporters,’ ” Trump told the audience. “And I don’t like that. I’m totally against that. By the way, I hate some of these people, but I’d never kill them. I hate them. No, I think, no—these people, honestly—I’ll be honest. I’ll be honest. I would never kill them. I would never do that. Ah, let’s see—nah, no, I wouldn’t. I would never kill them. But I do hate them.”

--The Atlantic, "How to Build an Autocracy" by David Frum

The Dirty Whore Argument, Part II

"[Jae], on a case by case basis, I have no doubt that men and women may experience healthy forms of sexual expression in the careers of prostitution and pornography.  I'm merely referencing the statistics that indicate high levels of problems in the prostitution and/or pornography business associated with addiction and abuse. And I definitely don't attach a moral judgment to someone's freedom to do what s/he wants as long as it doesn't hurt others.  So I agree with you entirely in the specific instance.  I also agree that having a woman versus a man be in charge is not necessarily going to improve or detract from the conditions.  Also, the hookup culture has all kinds of problems and complexities and benefits as well.  Stats never tell the whole story; they only offer a crude overview. :)"

--my poetry professor's response

The Dirty Whore Argument

"[Jae] and [student], I think as is the case with pornography as well, prostitution isn't inherently bad or evil. The problem is that it is rarely, if ever, done in a context that isn't damaging.  Too much of the time, power and manipulation, drugs, and addiction are associated with them.  People are easily taken advantage of in these situations, and rarely can they truly escape the fallout of such careers."

--post from my poetry professor on the online discussion board for class

Of course, I immediately responded, and disagreed with him, including divulging the information that yes, I'm a retired sex worker. 

Things That Surprise Me

"After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!"

--tweet from our President Donald Trump

Is he seriously calling The New York Times, arguably the greatest newspaper in the United States, "fake news"?

PeeWee's Moods

PeeWee has no more dignity in life, as she can be found sleeping in a puddle of her own piss, shivering in ignorance. She especially likes to walk through her own dung--or sleeping in that too, depending on her mood.

I Take Offense

"Dear [student],

I take offense to the use of the word 'whores,' especially if you never been one, because the term is very derogatory, and yes, there's a history of stigmatization and discrimination against sex workers. It's not to be thrown around, like how white people don't say 'niggers' or 'fags' anymore, unless they're assholes."

--my response to a poetry student, who on the discussion board used the word "whores."

Sexuality Relating to the Human Body

" 'Mary, ain't you tired of this?' could refer to Mary Magdalene, a controversial figure in Christianity who some believe to have been a prostitute. However, who is to say the nature of her sin was wrong? Once we can accept her sexuality, we can forget the age old speculation pertaining to the puritan heritage and Christianity to begin with: that sexuality relating to the human body is wrongful."

--written by the student S.H. in poetry class, explaining reasons why she/he is choosing a certain poem to dissect for his/her paper

I thought that was unusually insightful. 

The Giants

I actually sent a message to Andrew Solomon, author of "the Noonday Demon,"
after loving his work since I was eighteen.

Do You Want to Talk about Your Teacher?

My case manager drives me to a nearby town that rests right on the ocean. She stops the Civic about a block away from the water. She asks me, "Do you want to talk about your teacher?"

I have a lot of teachers, but I know she's referring to the English instructor. "No," I reply flatly, smoothly like I'm better than revealing anything--like this is better than it really is. To myself, I contemplate her disapproval shown through her mouth and on top of her forehead as I explain that he's married--and I was honest with him anyway.

Art Alone

"Yet another, I think, is the temptation to drown out moral and spirital problems of the personal life by the creative activity of art alone."

--T.S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry, by Elizabeth Drew, pg. 71

Good Word for the Professors

The Engl 201B professor stops me as I'm headed out of the library.

"[Jae]!" He says.

I turn around, see him and smile.

He then proceeds to ask me a bunch of different questions about my life, including details I didn't even remember having told him in the past, like, "Are you still hiking with your dog?"

Okay, when during office hours did I tell him how I was exercising Beck? Anyone have a guess?

The Engl 201B professor points to my hands full of books. "Good reading?"

"Oh, yeah, I have to write a paper on 'The Waste Land.' "

"That's quite an undertaking."

"Uh-huh....Hey, I was wondering, do you want to get a cup of coffee sometime?"

"Yes, that would be fun." He seems pleased. He also thanked me for writing him a email--for a good way to start his semester.

I have a feeling that I will develop a similar relationship with my Engl 201C professor as well. I spent some time talking to him after class, about whether it was worth the time during the semester to read Into the Wild--since I was already carrying a full load.

All of my professors this academic year have been genuinely interested in helping me succeed, which is very nice. This semester I like the whole group. I admit that I was sceptical because this is a community college, and from others outside of the college, I was told it was a "slacker school." I haven't found that to be the case. The material in each of my classes has been very engaging.

Evasion of Ourselves

"It may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves, and an evasion of the visible and sensible world."

--T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

A is for Awesome

"From the way you participate in class, and from the questions you ask," the COMM professor says. "I'm not worried about you getting an A."