Internet Addiction Clinic: One Hour Survey

Things that I resisted looking up on the internet in a one hour period:

Is there a complete works of F Scott Fitzgerald boxed set?

The Go Fug Yourself fashion blog

Lyrics for Dispatch’s “The General” and Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” 

(even though I have totally looked up the lyrics to those songs before)

Occupy Wall Street google search

Look at my own facebook wall, look at things I have already posted on facebook before

Scarlett Johanssen Style google search

Wikipedia for Lost in Translation

Baby names--boy names as girl names (like Billie)

Sending Meredith an email, with some pictures from our summer together

Look up embroidery patterns

The name Ursula for a baby name

Vintage Sunglasses

Eye of the Tiger lyrics

Songs that will really pump you up for life! and make you feel awesome!

Look up events on facebook

Look up easy guitar chords

Google Elna Baker

Is Fight Club on netflix streaming?

Periodically, I will delete all the browsers off my laptop and not have the internet at all. Then, when something inside yourself whispers, "you must look up a recipe for yellow coconut curry RIGHT NOW, it is very important," you can't do it. You just have to squirm awkwardly until the itch you can't scratch goes away. This is very hard. This is why it is an addiction. 

A couple weeks ago, I decided to write down all the things that i felt compelled to look up in a one hour period when I didn't have a browser and it was impossible. This list is what I got. It made it appallingly obvious that a) nothing i feel compelled to do online is urgent in the least and b) does this list say something about my subconscious/what i truly care about? fashion, and baby names, and blah? uggghhh i don't want to be that person uggghhhh. In either case, writing this list helped me to realize I want to change my internet habits.

Adbusters

I first saw adbusters in the airport when I was 19. I was stranded in Newark for what was to be a 7 hour delay. I was part of a study abroad group of 70 coming back from 2 months in Israel. It was a trip about 4 weeks too long. Not because of the country or the traveling or missing the US, but because of the students I was with. Nice people, all of them. I had no personal grudges. They were the picture of typical mormon kids, squeaky clean and well meaning and no secret agendas except for good clean fun. So it was kind of hard to put my finger on why I couldn’t stand being with them any longer. A little too much conformity, a little too much blatant consumerism, a little too many examples of assumed cultural supremacy, and i felt like they had all been gnawing at me the whole time. That extra 7 hours of time with them in the airport seemed like a 10 year sentence against me. I couldn’t stand it anymore and I wandered the airport stores and lounges alone.

Adbuster’s cover featured several marines carrying what looked like another soldier, probably dead, with the American flag draped over him. A quote sprawled over the front: “War is the force that gives us meaning.” It was obviously, blatantly subversive. Perfect. I had been trying for 2 months to be subtly subversive, and I needed to finally be out in the open. A magazine that was anti-war, that took itself seriously (too seriously), that openly spoke of the problems in our society. Blatantly anarchist and anti-corporate. This is something that I could wave in the face of my fellow students and say “Hey! I am different than you!” Which they already knew, which they already suspected. But I was just as desperate as they were to put me in a category. Just how was I different from them, exactly? And why?

I had personally connected with very few of the students. And I questioned the sincerity of the few I’d connected with. One I connected with because we were both the obvious outsiders. One because she was my roommate, and hey, I was a social creature after all--spending that much time with any person who isn’t totally hostile leads to some kind of connection. One I connected with because we both had an interest in journalism and were a little too intense for other people. I have not kept in touch with any of them. 

Like I said before, none of these people on study abroad were mean or bad or cruel, or even unfriendly. They tried hard to welcome me and i tried to fit in, but it just wasn’t working. But being truly nice, they even found ways to disguise that. “You’re so independent, Gini,” or “you are someone who does their own thing and doesn’t care what others think. I wish I could be like that, I admired you.” I was told these things so much over the 2 months I lived with these 70 students, I wondered if they had sent around a group email or had a secret meeting to coordinate how as a single body they should handle the strange, serious, freshman girl that was somehow outside the norm.

Anyway. I would have been attracted to any magazine that addressed war and peace, as that had been something of an intellectual hobby for several years already, and would only intensify as college went on. But it was a good time in my life and my psychological history for subversive magazines. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it, because it’s not tragic and it’s something that I’m changing gradual, but I’ve always been in the ‘outsider’ position. Outside of popular groups, outside of the mainstream of thought. I still don’t know if other people put me there or if I put myself there. Probably both.

Adbusters lit the spark behind OWS, did you know that? You probably know that by now. 

Advice that I am trying to follow

"One, I would take some classes at the UCB. Two, the secret to the success of The State was we never waited for anyone to ask us to do anything, or for anyone’s approval to do anything. We just fucking did stuff. We were shooting all the time, writing all the time. We would put up a live show every couple of months. We were aggressive. If you wait around for an opportunity to come up, it’s not coming. It isn’t, ever. Opportunities are not coming. The only opportunities that are coming are the ones you create. Otherwise you are just waiting around. "

Thomas Lennon’s advice for people who want to break into sketch comedy.

Not that I want to do sketch comedy, but you know. Other stuff. 

How to make a protest sign

Step One: Think of the things that make you angry. This is where you will draw your best material. Is there a particular issue that bothers you (like greed)? Is there a specific news article, fact, or statistic that makes you angry (like this one)? What about your heros--what advice of theirs is consistently discarded and forgotten about, and makes you angry (like, say, this passage)?

Step One Point Five: Do some research if you still don’t have ideas. You can take the experts' advice or you can go to the people in the streets. Either way. Just make some signs. Whatever. 

Step Two: Figure out how to fit these onto a piece of cardboard in an intelligible, meaningful way. Remember: People will have like 5 seconds to actually read your sign as the drive by in your car (unless you are lucky enough to get on the internet). Keep in short and edit for clarity. For example, i totally removed all the biblical/old english-speak from the Mosiah quote.

Step Three: Gather supplies. Hopefully you have cardboard, paint, and a paintbrush in your apartment. If not, I don’t know what you will do, use blood? As you are going to use these signs in anti-capitalist protest, I don’t think you should go out and buy stuff specifically for this event. But I guess if that is your only option, whatever, the ends will justify the means (maybe). I want you to think seriously and prayerfully about it before you take that route and go to Home Depot. Maybe you can borrow a sign from someone else instead.

Step Four: Paint on Cardboard. If you are a normal human being with a limited spacial sense, you will probably mess up. This can be fixed through creativity and/or reminding yourself that people are only going to look at this sign for like 5 minutes so it doesn’t matter all that much. And also, messing up makes it look more anarchist-y and DIY and that’s what you guys are going for anyway.

Step four must be completed while listening to some kind of awesome “fight against the man” music (remember those great Punk Against Bush albums? I wish they had those for wall street. Punk against Wall Street!). Anti-Flag will do. 

Or actually i just listened to whatever after awhile, it felt better to be mellow and listen to Arcade Fire.

Step Five: Don’t take all day and make it a work of freaking priceless art, because let’s face it, I’m underemployed! I’ve got some job applications to finish!

The finished product

I commented, like an upstanding participating citizen of the 21st century

on this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jd-samson/i-love-my-job-but-it-made_b_987680.html?ref=mostpopular

This is what I said incase it gets buried in all the other comments:
JD, don't listen to the haters. I respect your "coming out" financiall­y, admitting that you can't keep up, and voicing your worries about income and money. People get upset because they too recognize these same fears in themselves­--that no matter how 'successfu­l' they are, money will always be a worry--and they worry that these things are because they are lazy, or stupid, or they are selfish, etc. 

But this is the real problem, the real reason to Occupy Wall Street: to protest the lie that if you keep up the good work, you will be fine financiall­y, guaranteed­. It's not a guarantee, it's a crapshoot. This idea of the "American Dream" is used as a tool for control, to say that if you are poor, you deserve to be poor, and if you are rich, you deserve to be rich. This is obviously not true in many cases, and this lie is exploited by the rich to prove that they deserve what they have.

So thank you for voicing your insecuriti­es and admitting that you have had financial management problems and that you need to change. Good luck in your quest to become more financiall­y stable. I know that you can do it, even as a freelance lesbian artist. The part of the American Dream that says anything is possible is still true! It is just a matter of understand­ing what the actual costs of that dream are, and whether we are willing to accept those costs.


***End***


I am excited because I have gotten several angry replies already. I feel like I am participating in modern society. It's fun and also awful.

Soccer Trophies--The Real Enemy of Human Progress!

What is wrong with my generation? There has never been any generation more connected, that is for certain, but there has also never been any generation more covered by the news media, too. Over the last two years, for some reason, people keep forwarding me articles about how 20somethings have really awful job prospects and are floundering as a whole (maybe because I make less money now than I did in high school? maybe....).

In these, Millennial diagnostic reporting articles about parenting and psychology, the questions are, “what went wrong with these guys? besides the economy sucking, how did this happen and isn’t it tragic and what is going to happen next? what did we do wrong as parents?” And oh boy do they have the answers--it was helicopter parenting and it was too many IQ tests ‘proving’ we were smart and it was never letting kids fail in their entire lives. 

The ultimate symbol for this is the Soccer Trophy, which now stands as some kind of metaphor for why we are all messed up. When we all did soccer as 6 or 7-year-olds--being all cute chasing after the ball in a huge mass, wearing shin guards too big and shorts too long so they covered our entire legs in a sporty pantaloon--we looked ridiculous and we ruined the rest of our life. This is because we all got trophies (all of us!) the winners, the losers, everyone. We got rewarded for our efforts, even if they sucked, and we never failed, because failure is bad and our parents didn’t want that for us, only success and only trophies. 

As if when I was 7 years old and got that trophy I somehow translated that into “I’m never going to fail at anything! I am going to be awesome and always be successful and if I’m not, then I have done something wrong, I am a loser failure, and I deserve to have a rotten life!” The trophy thing is mentioned in like every article about the Millennial childhood, I am so tired of this cherry picking of my childhood, pulling this one thing out of all the hundreds of things that happened to me and saying, “well there now, that’s your problem.”

I did soccer when I was little and we never bothered with rankings and I got a trophy every year and it was awesome. Did I think I was the best? No. I was well aware that I was the kid who never scored a goal and the kid who had trouble dribbling up the field. Now, hip checking other kids or taking a ball to the face or the gut? There I was a champ. I may have been just a child, and I may have been rewarded with a trophy every year no matter the actual outcomes of our games, but I had a very clear picture of my abilities and failures.

I feel insulted that psychologists and parents and coaches look at this kind of thing, the soccer trophies, and think, “this is how we messed our kids up,” like we were pliable and subject to their designs, and we would have turned out perfect, but they just picked the wrong designs. Doesn’t this just seem like Helicopter Parenting, Part II but on an societal scale and supported by social science research with all these articles about what parents should have done?

These articles aren’t about real kids, they are about perfectionism. Parents and psychologists keep looking around and scratching their heads and saying in surprise, “you mean, we haven’t gotten it right yet? I thought we were going to be perfect this time!” No one has, no parent has, and there is a good chance that no one will. This is an obsession with perfect, which doesn’t exist.

But we keep looking. I mean, I’m doing it already. I don’t have kids, and yet I can feel within me the desire to save them from the mistakes I made--to make their life easier. I fantasize about fully rectifying all the mistakes my parents made so my child will be flawless, well-adjusted and successful. But my kids will have flaws! Big ones, probably, life all of us. No matter what I do, my children will have hard times and hardships and no guarantee of success in life. 

Robert McNamara said that you can’t change human nature. While he was referring to war and peace, this is true of everything. There is the human experience, and it has always been messy and confusing and it always will be. Most of these articles focus on how we should have taught our kids to work hard, not that they were smart, and all our problems would have been fixed. I agree that we as a generation maybe could have used a little more hard work ethic. But it wouldn’t have been a fix-all solution. An interesting study was conducted in China, focusing on students who were told from a young age that the most important thing is hard work. And still! And still despite all the positive reinforcement a survey revealed that students were convinced that the ability to work hard is an inherent personality trait that you either have or don’t. Many felt doomed and faced the same fears that we as westerners, taught that you are either smart or you are not, also experience. 

You can’t change the human experience. Things will be hard for you, things will be hard for your kids. You will make it hard through your choices and shortcomings and failures, and in part, hardness will just be thrust upon you. You will not find the magic bullet, because there isn’t one. There wasn’t a war to end all wars. There isn’t a psychological sound method of raising children that will produce perfectly well adjusted adults. No matter what I do, my kids are going to struggle with something, that’s how it works—trophy or no trophy.

WARNING

If I read another news article that says that the Millennials were ruined as a generation because everyone one got trophies for soccer when they were 7 and not just the winners, I am going to bust some heads. In a metaphorical kind of way because I am non-violent. More to follow.

The Worst/Best Year of My Life

I have been married for one year. Joel says it has been the best year of his life. I say that it has been the worst year of my life. Not because of my marriage though. If anything, that has been the reason why I got through this year without totally losing my shit. 

I haven’t felt like the sentiment expressed by many in the church that “i don’t know where i would be without the gospel” is totally sincere, or much more than a cliche truism. I mean, if you didn’t have the gospel, where you would be is not caring that you didn’t have the gospel, most likely, or part of another religious tradition, or you would be on track to find the gospel eventually anyway. It wouldn’t matter, your life path would be totally different. But like most of my cynicism, I eventually come to a point where i have to rescind and eat my words. Because i don’t know where i would be without joel. And that DOES matter because THIS is the life path that i want to be on, not some alternative reality one that doesn’t involve Joel (or okay, the gospel too, if i have to be all honest and non-cynical here).

So this has been the worst year of my life. I have had a full-on crushing bout of Quarter Life Crisis, complete with clinical depression and losses of hope and faith in myself and in the future. (It is also basically the biggest twentysomething cliche i could have picked. let’s get cynical about that sometime.) And to make the biggest understatement about my mental condition that I could possibly make, let’s just say that I spent a lot of nights crying a lot (you know that part where i said that i didn’t “lose my shit”? well, i guess whether i actually kept it together or not is actually debatable.) Joel was incredibly patient through all of this. He was also incredibly funny and good-natured and tried his best to keep me at least treading water. And he did his best to be my at-home therapist, no easy task as my mother and countless former roommates will tell you, since i simultaneously want your advice and want to rebel against any kind of advice you give me. He wasn’t a miracle worker, and as with all hard times in people’s live, you kind of just have to wait it out; there isn’t really much you can do to help or fix it until time or mind just takes its course. But he kept trying, and I always felt incredibly loved and cared for, all year.

I still stand by my statement that it was quite possibly the worst year of my life. But sometime, soon hopefully, I’ll be beyond this whole “i cannot function as an adult omg” episode. Maybe it’s even this coming year. And there were so many awesome parts of this past year, due to Joel and our marriage and all the great things we did together, that even with all the sucky parts, i have to admit that it still was good in many ways. And when the sucky parts are gone, it will be all that much better.

Or be replaced with different sucky parts (SHUT UP CYNICAL ME SHUT UP). 

What marriage is like:

Leaving Jezebel for the Dogs

I don't frequent it much, but Jezebel is one of those several time-waster websites.

However, after reading one too many ridiculous articles defending, editorializing, and propagating ideas that I just can never stand behind, I am done. This particular article was entitled something like, "Is Pornography Good?" and then went on to argue that pornography has done good things for the world and for the safety and well-being of men and women. According to this article, which sited an academic paper in some journal (so at this point, the info is 3rd hand in the information age telephone game), increased internet pornography usage correlates with decreased rape in some areas of the country. So maybe it is like, an alternate healthy channel for people who are really rapists.

That is just so unacceptable.

Pornography is indefensible. Pornography destroys people's lives and their relationships. It is a force for evil. Period.

I've spent a lot of time in grey area and thinking about issues as in between right and wrong. I'm naturally very postmodern and I don't believe in binarisms and blah blah blah yadda yadda.

But I also spent a year talking to 13 year olds every day about what they should and shouldn't do and what is right and what is wrong. And no, i didn't have scientific studies backing up all the things i wanted them to believe were wrong--like that lying is wrong, or revenge is wrong, or that sexual exploitation is wrong. But the fact is that those things are wrong, and I don't have to prove that, and it is sad that I have to defend the point of view that they are wrong. It is sad that pornography could ever be considered to be okay when should be so obviously considered wrong.

The world could do with a lot more moralism, and a lot more people pointing fingers and saying "this is wrong!" especially when it comes to issues like pornography and modern sexuality.

So, Jezebel. you were a time waster anyway and your opinions and points of view were always too cynical anyway. Good bye.

Why I sometimes hate Rhode Island and Rhode Island hates me--an illustration

***Wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't post it. here it is in all it's glory.

This morning, I got out of bed and immediately had to sit back down. I felt extremely extremely whoosey. I've been dehydrated and had heat sickness enough to know that that was probably it. And that though I love riding my bike to school, doing so during the first big heat wave of the year while I am already on my way to a heat stroke is probably not the best choice.

At this point I had missed the bus. which is a shame because they were free yesterday and are again today, because the ozone layer is really messed up or something and Rhode Island doesn't want you to drive your car. I could stay home, but I don't really know how to call about that, I would not want to leave my kids in the care of some other sub (for the sub's sake), and also, every day I don't work means I don't get $200, and i definitely wasn't $200 sick. I could walk, but that would still put me out in the sun for half an hour, and at this point I'd have to hussle to make it on time, which would only increase my need to hurl, probably.

So it was down to that awful, expensive, ozone-killing choice of taking a taxi to school. It wouldn't be that bad, it's not far. Probably less than $10. So I called on up. I was really lucky, I thought, because he came pretty fast. The dispatcher said 10 minutes and he was there in 7. Good. There was only 15 minutes to go before first period started. Good thing I had made copies the day before and was all set to got. I just needed to get there, and get there on time, and I was good.

When we pulled up to the school, i knew something was wrong. There was a very surprising lack of cars for this early in the morning. I saw two students get out of a car, walk up to the door, and then turn around and walk back down the stairs. Had something happened that I didn't know about? I mean, it was the middle of June! Surely school isn't canceled, what could you cancel school for? the heat? what is going on, seriously.

"There's a one hour delay," one of the students told me when I walked up to the door. Oh. My. Gosh Seriously?! I could have rode the %$*# bus! I walked into the school. There is this teacher that i don't particularly like standing by the desk. He reminds me of all the coach jock teachers that I didn't like because they were just as douchey as the jock students. And I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm stupid. "There's a delay?" I said.
"Yep" says douchey jock teacher.
"I didn't know that."
"I watch the news," he says, implying that i am a stupid idiot for daring not to watch the news. Who watches the news? The news is shit! TONIGHT AT 9--FIND OUT THAT THAT THING YOU LIKE WILL KILL YOU! I mean, seriously? What is school even canceled for, I still didn't know.

I go up to my room and long on to the internet, going right for Providence Public School District's homepage. Apparently, school has been delayed an hour for "wind damage." What the hell? Wind damage? What does that even mean, someone school's crappy roof got ripped off? And what, you are going to delay EVERY school in the district for this one school, and not only that, but can you freakin' fix a roof in one hour, if that even is what it is?

So awful. I could have taken the bus after all. Heck, I could have slept off the heat exhaustion for another half hour, walked at a snail's pace, and still made it in time.

But of course it is like this, because it is how everything has been in Rhode Island for me. You do everything you can in your power to make the most of a crappy situation, and you still get screwed over for it. And then, someone has the audacity to imply that it is all your own fault anyway because you should have known better/you were too stupid/why don't you watch the news.

But whatever.

Liberal Arts Guilt

originally written by hand mid-December 2010 while i was at work. re-written here for your pleasure and enjoyment.


One of the reasons that I am beating myself up is because of the crushing power of Liberal Arts Guilt*.
I was a liberal arts major. I picked a major that I enjoyed, one that would give me amazing life experience, room to breathe, room to think. One that was intellectually flexible. (it was middle east studies and arabic, fyi. being a MESA major wasn't actually any of those idealistic things, though. there were plenty of people who were in it for the practicality of speaking arabic and getting a slight leg up on the millions of poli sci majors our there). I have Liberal Arts Guilt that compared to those in my major and compared to other majors, I have never ever been very career oriented.

And that's what Liberal Arts Guilt is--guilt that you were never career or job oriented, that you foolishly thought that education was about learning for the sake of learning, not learning as a tool to a career. In your short sighted idealism you chose a liberal arts major so that you could learn and grow, while the street smart wise guys were majoring in business and engineering so they could be hirable. You were becoming wise, you thought, and they were just becoming qualified for jobs. You were above the drive for worldly success and gain!

And then at some point it hits you. Maybe for some it's when you graduate. Or maybe it's when the economy goes south and all the entry level jobs in non-profits and academia and wherever else lib art majors go dry up. For me, it was when TFA, "the viable liberal arts career path"i thought, fell through.

And then all the things that I had made the liberal arts major decisions by and all the things that I really valued about myself--sense of adventure, love of fun, my adaptability, my love of doing hard things that would help to grow and learn--seemed hollow and naive. All of that went away, and was replaced with the guilt of never planning for life, of having spent no time acquiring skills, of failing by worldly standards, of having no direction, no ambition, nothing.

Had I really majored in a liberal arts because of all these noble reasons? Had i really not planned for something more career-oriented because of some lofty reason? Or was it because I was lazy, inept, and unable to function in a "real major?" Would I likewise never have a "real job"?
******************************

Thinking about it 5 months later, that is one reason why TFA works--because of Liberal Arts Guilt. Yes, i don't have a job somewhere else and it is my fault. Please, please TFA take two years of my life and part of my soul away, i deserve such punishment for my failures. I will prove myself, i will work hard, and i will expect nothing in return. Please let me be a teacher with little rewards (in either a tangible or metaphysical sense) and work 60 hours a week and no one will really care and that is what I deserve because i majored in Ethnic Studies/Philosophy/various liberal arts majors. Such is the inner dialogue of many TFA recruits, and the reason why an organization that does treat people in pretty crappy ways is allowed to get away with it.

So, do I still have Liberal Arts Guilt? I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. I still don't know. I think it would have been a mistake to just pick something at random and go with just because i felt a need for a career. I realize that I also skipped a lot of "what will I major in?" drama because I didn't care about career paths and goals. I guess I have to deal with the consequences of that now. But maybe I'd be in this same quandary, anyway. If anything, I regret not doing something TOTALLY useless instead of the kind of middling MESA major. If i did it over again, I'd probably choose art history or film studies. So no, at the end of the day, I am totally unrepentant. The question of where to go next is still an issue, though.

*yes, this is a term that I came up with myself. you should tweet about it so that it becomes an actual thing.

The Day I Cried In Class

I've always been told that, as a teacher, it is totally unacceptable to cry in front of your class. That is something you should never, never do.

Well, if you know me, you know that if you tell me to never do something there is a good chance i will do it just to spite you, and because i like to do things that people find unexpected.

So today I cried in front of my class today. It went pretty well.

It started with Franyi, asking me to change the powerpoint. "I'm getting lost! Why are they bulleted instead of numbered! I can't copy that! blah blah blah!" okay, you are weird and that is a weird request, but I can change that, no problem. So i go to the computer, to change the powerpoint. As i leaned down to change the powerpoint, my back to the class, i heard a scream of protest. This is not out of ordinary for any changes occurring in my class--like the lights going off, or the bell ringing, or expecting them to do more than 5 minutes of work, or anything that they have the opportunity to scream at or protest, really. But then, WHAM! something hit the wall, missing my head by inches.
O.M.G.
kids have gotten mad at me before in class, but throwing things at my head? this is ridiculous. i am a teacher, i deserve respect, dammit. Or at least to not feel like i am in danger.
And then i thought about the hours i spend on this stupid job. This stupid job that i hate, where i know i will never ever be a teacher again so it adds nothing to my resume, it adds nothing to my professional development, it is a dead end. And how i break the rules for these stupid kids, i throw parties for them and i tell the school department to go screw their stupid language program and i give up parts of my weekends to plan things. And i spend hours thinking about the stupid theatre project that we are going to do now.
And i was mad now. i was feeling real bad. And i knew i was going to cry. And i knew that would be real, real not cool.

But when you are going to do something totally uncool, like cry in front of your class, there are only a couple choices that you have. You can try to hide it, or you can embrace it and just go with it. In a moment of empowerment and determination which in my weakened, beaten down teacher self, i thought i was no longer capable of, i decided to embrace it.

I turned around to face my class, knowing full well that it was VERY obvious from my face that i was about to cry, and once i spoke, it would be even more obvious.
"Who threw that? Tell me now, who threw that?" It wasn't working. No sound. In fact, i've never seen my class this quiet, or more fixated by me, ever. They weren't going to give up the culprit, i could tell, but they'd listen if i lectured. This was probably my only chance to actually be heard. I didn't even have to shout. This time a small voice actually would be more powerful.

"You know what, I don't even have to punish you. You punish yourselves. You punish each other. Everyday we fall further and further behind, and that is your fault. What are you going to do when you get to high school next year? It's not going to be like this. You are not going to have teachers that baby you like we do. I am tired of this. I am tired of the disrespect. I want to be your teacher, but I am tired of the disrespect. I want to do play projects with you, but I don't know if we can. There is a reason that I am your third teacher, ladies and gentleman [yes i said that, hahaha]. There is a reason that the other teachers left. There is a reason you are so far behind. And you need to get it together, because I am tired of it, and so are most of you. I love you guys, I really care about you, and I enjoy getting to know you as people, but you need to get your act together so that I can be your teacher."

I don't know what kind of impact that had. they were quiet for about 10 minutes, which never happens. I never found out who threw the whatever-it-was, pencil probably.

My ever-so-new-england teacher next door, who has been the best mentor ever this year, said that a couple things can happen when you cry in front of your class, but either way, you find out how they really feel about you. Sometimes they laugh. My class was just absolutely quiet, and kind of terrified. A "what have we done?" kind of terrified. Later, students expressed their condolences, saying that they were tired of it too, and that they hated how kids treated me. Some sweet students asked me periodically during the day if I was feeling better. Other teachers in the ELL program put the threat of a full week of detention for the entire class over the heads of the students if anything like this happened again (i think "like this" means that if they make me cry again, but i don't think that will actually happen. Pencil throwing will probably happen again, but not crying).

The rest of the day went fine. We talked about Fast Five and Sperry Topsiders and boyfriends and afros, and we also did a test and some theatre unit prep work. I am not always a good teacher. I have never had all that much control on my emotions. But I know that I have good relationships with my students. I know they know that I care about them, and I know that even though they are crazy punks a lot of the times, they are human children, after all. They care, too, sometimes. If I cry enough. Tomorrow will probably be no different than any other day. The rest of the year will probably still be a struggle. But I cried once during class, and it went pretty well.

Adult Discussions

One of my biggest suppressed fears is that all the good things that happen in life only really happen in college, or other manifestations of 'fake' life, like summer camp or gap years or with anonymous people in on public transit or something. I've discussed this a little previously (see: glory days).

One such thing that I was afraid would disappear in my 'real' life would be interesting, engaging, and thought provoking questions. The kind you have with your roommates until 3am, or the kind you have with total strangers you know you'll never see again, or that happen because you and everyone you know is reading lots of interesting books with big ideas and is up on the news, and so things just get discussed and thought about.

I am happy to report that this is not the case. My husband and I had over some friends tonight, and we had over some other friends yesterday. And in both cases, we talked about topics including but not limited to: healthcare lobbyists, inequality in America, moral dilemmas in charity, the moral dilemmas of producing new ideas, nuclear weapons, neurology, the scientific method, is sociology a real discipline or not?, storytelling in modern society, inception:dream or not a dream, other christopher nolan movies, quentin tarantino movies, centralization and de-centralization in the LDS church, and cat stories (haha).

Not only that, but my husband and I have talked about all this times 1000 things more. Good, thought provoking conversation does not end with college. Not if you don't want it to.

I think that if you miss something, there is a good chance that other people out there miss it too. Like how everyone misses arrested development. and just like we can watch the re-runs and hope that they will finally get around to making that blasted movie and that it will actually live up to the hype/pressure, you can bring back those things you miss with other people, too.

Ralph Nader, please show me my purpose in life

I've spent a lot of time thinking about "my purpose in life." And yes, I have to put it in scare quotes. Because, I'm a cynic, naturally, and there is no getting around that.

I know that I'm a cynic and a skeptic because when I was in high school, I didn't believe in Great Works of Literature. Someone would say "Shakespeare is really a genius" or "Heart of darkness changed by life" (okay, bad example) and I would smile but secretly think, "they are surely overrated, like everything else." Much to my surprise, after reading one of these books I would invariable thing, "oh, that was actually good." And then I realized that, though a cynic and better than most people (or so I thought), i am not in fact the smartest person who ever lived, and Shakespeare may in fact have been a genius, and not only that, but someone might have realized that before I did.

So, in an effort to apply these facts to my life, I have attempted to follow other peoples' advice on a wide variety of things. I have often failed.

One thing I am trying now but failing at is to forget myself and go to work. However, the (more advanced) cynic in me suggests that this is impossible--that by doing service in such a self-serving manner as trying to fix myself and find my own life's purpose, I am disrupting the quiet selfless nature of true service.

Ironically, while reading one of the great works of literature that my cynicism caused me to spurn in my (younger) youth, my later cynicism has been vindicated. I'm reading Anna Karenina (sent to me by mystery person), and in it, one of the main characters is in a slump. Depressed, unsure of her life's direction, she goes abroad, meets some wonderful people, and takes after their do-gooder ways (sound familiar, eh? peace corps or service year, anyone?). However, she realizes that while one do-gooder is totally earnest, the other one goes about building others up for the hidden purpose of building herself up. The difference? Earnest do-gooder was born and raised like that and has always done it. It is truly nothing to her, it is second nature. The character realizes that unlike her, she will never be a true do-gooder.

And nor, to a certain extent, will I.

In the church (and in many other places besides), there are always a lot of statements like, "if everyone was like X then everything would be perfect," and those of us not like the ideal are supposed to feel bad for bringing everyone else down. But the truth is, some of us are meant to do things and others of us aren't. God made me who I am for a reasons. If he wanted us all to be X, he could have done that really easily. But he didn't.

Some of us are already going to have the ability to be charitable to everyone. And others of us, we might be better to leave well enough alone. Like Kitty in Anna Karenina, we will realize that sometimes, bad things may come of our good intent, because we are not playing to our real strengths.

I was reminded of this again when I was watching Ralph Nader: An Un reasonable Man. (Good doc, but i'm already a Nader lover so I don't know if my opinion counts). The guy didn't set out to say "i'm going to change everything about America." No doubt he is and became aware of that destiny, but he didn't pursue it outright like that. Instead, he was just trying to do the right thing and be the best and follow his heart, and he ended up on the path he was on because of that.

I don't know if it's true anymore for artists, I feel like all of them are influence by Andy Warholian/factory-ness or advertising, but here is a quote from that weekend moral dilemma book that also backs up this notion:

"[Artists] are sensible enough to conceive of art as the by-product of a job of work done. The opposite effort to capture the by-products first (the self-conscious pursuit of beauty, the pursuit of art for art's sake to the exclusion of jobs of work and other pedestrian beginnings), was always a reflection of selfish wealth, selfish leisure and aesthetic decadence." -John Grierson, 1st Principles of Documentary

In other words, it is selfish to work towards these 'by-products'--such as beauty, or in the case of Nader or do-gooders, changing the world for the better--rather than just working period and getting stuff done, and letting these by-products come as they will.

So...I can't "find my purpose." That's vain. And I can't abandon myself in the care of others, because that selflessness is secretly selfish. Or change myself, because then I'm not following my true gifts. Instead, I need to pursue what my real talents are, and my destiny will come to me. Like in a Paolo Cuelho book, I imagine (see, i like Paolo Cuelho, I'm not that cynical).

The problem now is, what are these talents and how do I pursue them?

Weekend Moral Dilemma

I almost stole this book, Film: A Montage of Theories, edited by Richard Dyer McCann, from Classical High School last weekend. It was my Weekend Moral Dilemma (something I like to do every weekend, just some at-home moral experimentation, this weekend I'm thinking a lot about Jeremy Bentham. anyway).

I love everything absolutely everything about this book, from its pink and black iterative cover to its quotableness, the people it makes me want to recommend it to, and especially its copyright. It was published in 1966 and all its articles date from the '30s-'50s.

I love reading anything totally outdated. Valencia Community College was throwing out tons of periodicals once. Being a teenage girl, I loved the 80s and I loved making collages, so I of course took the entire year of 1985 People Magazine. Great pictures and ads. Used these all through college for various things, including street art dream that still haven't materialized.

I also discovered that one of my teenage-girl loves was reading dated material. It was weird to read about celebrities, Vietnam war vets, US politics, etc from 20 years ago talked about like they were current events. It gave perspective. Everything we do is so fleeting and not as important as we think it is, and we have been struggling with the same exact social issues for two decades, and probably eternity. There is nothing new under the sun....

Anyway, I really really wanted to steal this book from Classical. I decided not to. It really isn't worth it. I loved those people magazine volumes, but I don't have them anymore. Eventually, I just digitized the best pictures and tossed them out.

The best part of the book was the writings on documentaries. For several years now I have wallowed in the pretentiousness of being someone who enjoys documentaries. These were written when the idea of "what is a documentary?" was still being formulated and hadn't been talked to death and distorted for various politically expedient motives and profit and post-modernist theses.

The essays on documentary hounded over and over again that in making a documentary, you had a social responsibility to make some kind of commentary on society. One that would produce feelings/emotions that made viewers sympathetic or affected by a plight or cause. "Especially in a time like ours," one documentarist quips.

Loved that. Especially loved that since that was 50+ years ago, and while documentaries are important and i think a little more widely viewed than they were then, I would not say that they have really affected change in any way. Even the super mainstream ones like an Inconvenient Truth or Waiting for Superman (incidentally, both directed by the same guy). Really adds to that 'perspective.' The things we demand are necessary, that we see as absolutely necessary or true, they may or may not be, or they may not really matter still, half a century later. Documentaries still affect very little. The cacophony of voices on the internet and worldwide hampers this, as do the fact that very few outside a certain set of films is seen by the vast majority of people. The quote that documentarians need to focus on social issues and social change "especially in a time like ours" implies that there is something they can do, or change. But there are still so many problems in the world, more even, and few have been solved. Vanity of vanities...

Anyway, to make this about me again, regardless of the futility or the necessity, I think my life would be incomplete if I never attempted to make a documentary or film of some kind. add that to The List.

A very specific example

From the young women's class last week (no church this week because of ice, yay!).....

Teacher: "What does it mean to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that need comfort?"

Girl: "It means like, if you have a kitten, and it falls in a hole, in the street, and you can't get it out, because you don't have a long enough rope, and the kitty can't grab it, then you can call all of us and we'll come over and give you a hug and knit a scarf for you that says 'kitten' on it."

Glory Days

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the gloria
well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days
Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days
                      -Bruce Springsteen, "Glory Days"


I've always been really uncomfortable with the idea that there are "best days of our lives"--our Glory Days. Like the Bruce Springsteen song, or that Bryan Adams song, summer of '69. (are the Boss and Bryan Adams the same genre, americana rock or something? is this just a theme of that kind of singersongwriter? Does John Cougar Mellencamp also have a song about years gone by? must investigate.) These references to a "best time" especially worry me because most of them refer to high school as that time, and I hated high school.


Well, the problem is, I loved college. And now, as a member of the post-college delirium group, I often feel like college was the best days of our lives. Yessiree, it was the good ol' days, nothing will ever be as good, the rest of my life is tedium and I will now become and alcoholic. 


It seems fitting, though. That college should be the best years instead of high school. 40 years ago all you needed was a high school diploma, and those were the best times. Now you need a college diploma, and the best years of your life have been upgraded as well.


I guess part of not really believing in a "best days of my life" thing before was that I hated high school and please tell me God that this is definitely, definitely not the best years of my life. 


Sometimes there is a benefit in having a real hard time of something. It meant that I looked ahead for my escape instead of behind me.


Given that, the healthiest thing to do would be to remember all the parts of college that I really hated. To de-romanticize the period a bit. Then, instead of longing for the by-gone days, I'll remember that those in fact sucked too, and all I will have left is the future. Or, I will become an alcoholic that much faster.

These people look older. Maybe this movie tells me that the best years of our lives is really middle age?