problem.

so i have a problem.  just a slight dilemma.  you see, i'm in the middle of prepping for my phd exams.  and i'm getting more and more excited as i work.  but i have to pay my bills.  which means i have to teach.  which means i really should be grading the 225 paper and 75 journals (not to mention numerous homework assignments) i have recently collected.  but i just don't want to.  i want to read.  and research.  and write.  i don't want to grade.

but then there's the little problem of rent.  and food.  so i suppose i'll grade the damn papers.  wish me speedy grading.

comfort.

this morning, i almost cried in front of my students.  it's been a bit of a rough weekend.  george helped see me through it with kindness and love and food and shopping and even some laughter.  and i was feeling okay this morning until i had to talk to someone about it again right before getting to class.  so i showed up in class a little emotional.  and had to apologize to my students for distributing some information late.  and before i knew it i was tearing up again.  i hate such things.  it's only happened once before--last spring when i was so sick that i got lightheaded and felt like i was close to passing out while i was teaching.  i don't mind showing a weakness i can laugh about--like throwing up on the first day of class.  but the other ones--the ones that scare me a bit--those are harder.

after class was over, one of my students asked if she could talk to me apart from the other after-class hangers-on, so i asked her to wait a moment while i answered the others' questions.  once they'd all left, she surprised me.  instead of asking about our current paper or the homework, she said, "you seem like such a beautiful person.  and i can tell you're not feeling up to your best.  i'm sorry things are hard right now."  and she gave me a hug.  if i were feeling particularly cynical, i suppose i could attribute this to brown-nosing.  but her eyes glossed over with tears while she was speaking and i have no doubt it was sincere.  this evening i checked my email only to find a message from another student expressing sympthy.  and i find myself feeling comforted by these simple gestures of kindness and support.

flying.

i’m sitting in the salt lake airport, on a layover on my way to virginia for a friend’s wedding. the last 18 hours went perfectly smoothly. grading at j(wh)’s house all afternoon yesterday, munching on yummy cheese and baguette. a quick errand on the way home. more grading—at the amazing rate of 10 minutes per paper. another quick errand to procure cold medicine (yes—i am unfortunately flying with a cold). which errand turned into a jaunt to atomic for a handful of dances with j(wh) and a kiss goodbye before i actually ran my errand. i walked into the pharmacy precisely one minute before it closed at 11. packing my bags. to bed by 12:15. awake (and alert!) by 6. an hour and a half spent recording grades, nipping a potential plagiarism problem in the bud, and planning a lesson. a quick shower. last minute packing. rush off to campus to take care of a couple of clerical tasks. teach a successful class, complete with a break while my students did peer review so i could call my mom and ask her to bring me the meds i forgot to pack. and my mom dropping me off at the airport with plenty of time to spare. and—bless her—my sweet mama made me a lunch to take with me.

having every single thing go smoothly last night and this morning was a wonderful release from yesterday morning’s anxiety and fear and emotion. reflecting on the number of tiny things that clicked to make life just a little less stressful fills me with gratitude. if things hadn’t gone as smoothly, i would have handled it just fine. i’ve had my share of stressful traveling and things have usually worked out in the end. but i’m glad that the stars aligned and life was easy for a little while. and tonight i’ll be in beautiful virginia. and friday—friday i’ll be in charlottesville, which is one of this world’s perfections.

and now i’m looking out at utah’s beautiful mountains, a faint silhouette against a stormy gray sky. it’s raining outside, but i’m warm in my soft sweater. the overwhelming gray makes the brilliant yellows and oranges and reds and greens of the airport stand out in stark contrast. and the world is vibrant.

memorable.

so today was the first day of a new quarter. i stayed up a little too late last night, given that my class started at 9:00 this morning. but by the time i was walking from my car to my classroom, enjoying the bright sun and brisk air of a california spring day, i was feeling good. excited to start a new quarter. resolving to work harder, to be more responsible to myself and others for the work i need to do.

and class started out swell. i introduced myself. i had the students introduce themselves and bantered with them a bit. they were visibly loosening up within the first ten minutes of class. things were peachy.

and then, fifteen minutes into class, i started feeling warm. at first i thought it was because i'm wearing both a button-up shirt and a sweater and the room was warm. but then the skin on my face started getting clammy. and i felt a bit light-headed. and i knew it wasn't good. so i aborted. no more syllabus review. 25 minutes into class, i skipped to our last activity--a ten-minute diagnostic freewrite.

so my kids start writing. i sit down and hold my head between my hands, breathing deeply. and i seem to be doing better. i cool off a bit. i'm not so woozy. but after about eight or nine minutes, i just know i'm going to throw up. and there's no bathroom anywhere near. here's how it went down:

me: {scanning room to find trashcan, which is all the way across the room right next to the door} ok, go ahead and wrap up what you're writing.

students: {dead stare at teacher, who is obviously in physical discomfort.}

me: just go ahead and put your papers on... {duck head and hold it between my hands as i fight off sickness}...on the empty desk on your way out.

students: {start packing up and leaving papers at front.}

me: {stand quickly and begin walking towards trashcan} and if i throw up {pass gas while walking} as you leave... {reach trashcan, lean over and vomit} i apologize. {lean over trashcan and vomit more.}

students: {shuffling out of the door, mere inches from me leaning over the trashcan, vomiting repeatedly; trying not to stare too much.}

one considerate student paused on her way out to ask if she could do anything for me and to offer me her water. the rest fled as quickly as they could. for which i do not blame them. because, after all, "what to do when the teacher vomits in class on the first day" is not really standard classroom etiquette.

i've been laughing about it since the moment i leaned over that trashcan and ralphed. absolutely hilarious. it does make for some lovely irony that my assert-authority-and-scare-students-just-
enough-while-still-reassuring-them-that-the-class-will-be-fun shtick got derailed by unavoidable bodily functions. at least i can't be accused of boring my students on the first day.

ordeal.
it's finals week. i proctored the exam for my class this afternoon. five short answer identification & explication questions and two essays in two hours. 25 students writing fast and furious.

i like writing and giving a final. finding passages to use for identification/explication questions is like a puzzle. they have to be representative and significant, but also a little obscure--not something we've talked about explicitly in class, but still something that my students can recognize and explicate. and timed essay prompts are difficult to write. they have to strike the perfect balance between generality and specificity, giving the students enough direction that they don't flounder but enough rope that they can either explore fascinating ideas of their own (rather than try to regurgitate to me what they think i think) or hang themselves with their lack of preparation.

sometimes i feel bad for my students. as i walk around the room, i see the signs of stress on their faces. and, looking over their shoulders, i see which ones got caught in the snares of the identification passages--snares usually set by their own laziness or lack of attention to detail, but it forces me to admit to choosing passages with an eye for some slight possibilities for confusion. and i wince inside, because it seems like maybe i was unfair in the passages i chose.

but that always passes. because another part of me relishes their torture. two hours in which they have to pay the piper for all of those half-assed response papers and the stone-faced silence in class and the refusal to do the hard work of revision. the Machiavelli in me rubs my hands and grins gleefully at my students’ fear of a looming final, their strain under the burden of Too Much to Know.

in reality neither of those tendencies wins out in the end. i know that my exams are fair and that the students who have taken the time to do their work will be just fine. for them, the final is an opportunity to demonstrate their merit. because the thing about a final is that it's really a trial by ordeal--a modern day version of proving virtue by combat. the ones who deserve to pass, do. the ones who don’t, don’t. and, just as with medieval trials by combat, there will be a few who are guilty as sin--who read half of each novel, if that; who only made a half-hearted attempt at writing anything; who don’t deserve to pass based on true merit at all--but who will try to find a way to pass anyway.

honestly, if they’re clever enough to find a way to pass without having done as much work as they should have, i’m okay with that. because now that my students' final is out of the way, i get to look forward to my own ordeal. and trust me--while my success will be in part due to merit, it will also be in part due to my ability to b.s. my way through almost anything.

anecdote.
so. i'm mid-stride while teaching today. i've just posed a thought-provoking question about the relationship between fashion and language in conjunction with woolf's orlando. and one of my brighter students has her hand up to comment. i call on her and what does she say? 'i've been watching that spider?' (pointing towards the floor about five or six feet in front of her.) i look at the spider and say, 'huh.' she continues, 'it's crawling towards me.' i look at her quizzically and ask, 'do you want me to kill it?' she replies, 'yes please. i'm sorta arachnophobic.' at which point i squished the spider (which though unusually black was very small) and re-posed my question verbatim while the rest of the class contained their amusement so as not to embarrass the poor girl. and inside i was laughing, even if i was all business and fashion and orlando.

satisfied.
a few discoveries and experiences that have left me feeling happy.

decadent.

• delicious. it's official: thai nakorn is back. and it's as wonderful as ever. after not having had the absolute perfection of beef panang curry and barbequed catfish, among many other delicious options, for nearly five months, it was heaven to partake again. if you like thai (and you should; if you don't there's something wrong with you), you need to get yourself to the new location. 11951 beach boulevard in stanton (at the intersection of chapman and beach). go. indulge. and give your support to this fantastic restaurant run by some of the nicest people i've met. you won't regret it.
• christian constant. RAF just returned from a whirlwind trip to paris and london. and wonderfully thoughtful man that he is, he returned with a stash of christian constant chocolate for me. four perfect bars of dark chocolate, each with its own distinct flavor based on where the cacao beans were grown. and this time a box of truffles with fillings infused with flowers including tuberoses, frangipani flowers, tahitian vanilla flowers, and more. i'm salivating thinking about them but i need the thai-fullness to wear off.
• macarons. as if the christian constant weren't enough, RAF also brought a selection of macarons from laduree, the home of the 'new' macaron which sandwiches flavored garnishes between two traditional macarons. i can't wait to sample these beautiful little pastries.

stories.

• vampires and demons. i've been re-reading dracula this week, as i'm teaching it in my lit class this quarter. and i'm remembering just how fun this book is. it's totally unpredictable in spite of the cultural capital it carries in our society. even having read it before, i'm still surprised by its twists and turns. it will keep you turning pages. it's a fascinating glimpse into the world of the victorian fin-de-siecle--a world of high speed transportation, fabulous new inventions, and crumbling social mores. and it's a compelling examination of the way humans define themselves by establishing, and attempting to police, nebulous borders which are always subject to violation.
  
• jekyll & hyde. another literary classic that's become such a commonplace in our cultural language that many never bother to check out the original. a quick and entertaining read, the strange case of dr. jekyll & mr. hyde remains startlingly current in spite of its rather far-fetched science. in the fraught cultural atmosphere resulting from last week's tragedy at virginia tech, jekyll & hyde gave my students and me an opportunity to examine the ways we demonize those who commit atrocities in an effort to understand the inexplicable and to reassure ourselves that we could never commit such acts ourselves.
  

change.
this has been a long time coming. long as in years. i've been making this decision for so many years that i'm not sure when i wasn't already making this decision. which is fitting somehow. always already. the catch phrase of late 20th century literary criticism.

what decision? the one to leave my program. no phd. after years of planning on completing graduate education and choosing not to go on and then changing my mind and going on anyway, i think i've finally made a decision that will stick. i'm withdrawing. looking for a job that will pay the bills in the short term. and a teaching position at either a junior college or private high school for the long term.

those are the basics. the reasons why are not quite as basic. or maybe they are. it boils down to loneliness. and circumstance. i spend so much time feeling alone. i don't like it. and i wish i could change it. but i can't. i cannot exist in isolation. it makes me feel little and meaningless. and there is nothing that makes me feel more alone--desolately alone--than the kind of research and writing required by my program. and that very thing is what would make the career i had been planning on secure. so when i think about finishing the program and getting a job, it feels like all i have to look forward to is isolation with the limited connection that teaching would allow me. and i can't do that.

i think the thing i've realized most clearly in the last few weeks as i've thought through this decision is that such choices cannot be made in the abstract. it seems so obvious when it's stated like that. but i find myself thinking that the fact that i have a certain ability and desire and that those things are good means i am failing or quitting if i don't pursue them with no consideration for my emotional and psychological circumstances. allowing those circumstances to influence my decisions feels like weakness, like i'm just not strong enough to overcome the need to belong. what i have continually found myself battling is the idea that if only i had the strength of character and will, i would be able to do it in spite of my circumstances. it's toxic.

i've decided that that approach is foolish. how could proceeding in spite of circumstances be a strength? how is it good to ignore realities in pursuit of an ideal? i am by no means asserting that ideals should be ignored. nor that our abilities and possibilities should not play a role in making choices about what we will do with our gifts. just that ideals and reality should temper each other. my reality is that i am alone in many, many ways. and i do not have the emotional strength to make myself alone in other ways when i could choose a career path that would allow me to interact in such meaningful ways without the isolation of the research.

so. i'm withdrawing. with master's degree number two. and i'll look for a teaching job. and i know i'll lose some things i love because of it. and i know i'll deal with some things that will drive me batty because of it. but i believe it will make me happier. and that it will allow me to fulfill other dreams without the costs--costs that have become a bit staggering--i think i will have to pay if i continue in the direction i have started.