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Kiss My Tiara, Too
"I feel there is something unexplored about a woman that only a woman can explore."
--Georgia O'Keeffe
"The Bible contains 6 admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. This doesn't mean God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision."
--Lynn Larner
I was here at Oct 17, 2002 at 8:00
Sign number one that I need to make an appointment with my counselor: I can't sleep because thoughts keep storming through my head.
Sign number two that I need to make an appointment with my counselor: I am honestly dealing with minor bouts of depression after Rams games every week. Furthermore, I lie in bed after every game, too depressed to sleep. This, my friends, is not healthy. One should not let the performance of a sport team control the way one feels about one's life--unless, of course, one is directly affiliated with the team, ie. coach, player, partner of player, owner. I am none of those, therefore, I need to call Rebekah in the morning.
Here is a paper from my asshole student who, in one week, argued with me about the F I gave him for not meeting my assignment guidelines, went off on me in class using the most vulgar language, and spent a class mimicking me. Between the lines, this paper is his bitch about what I need to do for him to get an A in my class. The funny part, though, is that I already am all of these things. I just don't pass asshole students who think they're too good for my assignments.
"There are certain qualities a good teacher must have. One important quality of a good teacher is flexibility. Although rules are important, if a teacher shows flexibility it could help with student's individual needs. Sometimes the student has a good reason for not meeting the teachers requirements. If the student has a good reason, it would be unfair of the teacher to give the student consequences. Another quality a teacher should have is patience with students. It always helps the situation if the teacher can show patience. Some slow learners need a patient explanation. Also, if the teacher understands there is a wide range of different types of students, the teacher will understand the need to use a variety of teaching methods. Each students has a different style of learning so good teachers won't try the same method with everyone. Most importantly, a good teacher has a positive way of giving feedback. Positive feedback will show the students that they can be successful if they try. Teaching is a hard job but it will make things easier if the teacher has some of these qualities."
It just burns me everytime I read his stupid paragraph. I kept resisting the urge to defend myself throughout typing that. I mean, he's just a spoiled, immature, bitter 18 year old who refuses to try to acclimate himself to the college climate. Here's a details of my last week with him.
Day 1: I return their descriptive paragraphs to them. The assignment was to describe one place in great detail. Buddy here described three different ski lodges. I wrote at the bottom of his page, "This is a fine description and it has wonderful details, but it does not meet the requirements of the assignment. You were to choose only one place, not three." In the 50 minute class, Buddy came up to me five times--that's right, every 10 minutes--to argue with me. The first three times, I calmly explained the assignment and his manner of not following it. The fourth and fifth times, I said, "Buddy, I already explained myself clearly to you more than once. I'm not discussing this any more. If you need to, feel free to take it to my supervisor."
Day 2: Although the assignment is on the syllabus, I know that my students aren't fully acclimated to college yet, so I remind them that they have a new paragraph to hand in on Wednesday. Quite a few students raise their hands. Buddy is one of them. I go over to his group and he says, "I didn't know anything about this assignment. You don't make things very clear." "Buddy, it's very clearly written on your syllabus." "Yes, but I don't have an assignment sheet." "Your syllabus tells you precisely what the assignment is." "How am I supposed to know to look at it." "In college, it is wise to use your syllabus DAILY so you know what's going on. That's what it's for." Silence. I walk over to Josh. I hear Buddy say to his group, "That's bullshit. I never know what's going on in this class. That bitch is awful." I am brief with Josh and then march back over to Buddy. His back is to me, but his group member can see me and are relieved that they didn't respond to his comments. "Buddy. If you have a problem with me, you can handle it in three ways. You can come talk to me in my office hours as an adult, but make sure you come with valid complaints and not just I wish and I want. You can withdraw from my class and reenroll next semester with a different teacher. Or you can take your problem to my supervisor. But you will not, ever, speak in that way about me in my classroom again and think I can't hear it." I storm away. His group and the remaining students are stunned silent. He meets me at the elevator and tells me three times that if he's not working out for me, he'll withdraw. I tell him the first time that this is his decision to make. Both of the other times, I mmmm and press the elevator button. He walks away only as the elevator doors are closing on me.
Day 3: I give my students group work to do and then move from person to person, helping them write strong thesis statements and topic sentences for their first essay assignment. When I am at his group, he spend the entire time mimicking me and making smartass comments under his breath. I decide to ignore them and to kick him out publically on Monday if he pulls any of that shit again. In fact, I half pay attention to my students and their topic sentences and half fantasize about saying, "Buddy, get out of my class and don't come back again until you lose the attitude." After class, I skim through their paragraphs quickly before meeting Heather and Melissa for lunch. I see his paragraph and wish that I'd kicked him out immediately.
I've spent the entire weekend mulling over how to handle this situation, especially since my supervisor has ignored two emails that I've sent him, one on Wednesday and one on Friday.
And I'm sure that I'll have a message on my phone from Buddy's parents. God, I hate it when students have their parents call like they're still in high school.
And PS. His name isn't really Buddy, but I figured that was better than calling him Asshole throughout.
I'm a regular reader of ladywriter's blog, and she does something that I think so so cool. She puts the DSM IV description of her diagnoses on her page. A lot of people think that mental illnesses are, well, not illnesses. So I think putting it out there in some way does a little something to change the way people think. Or not. But at least I can delude myself.
Anyway, all that was to say that I, too, have a disorder and I'd like to be a copycat and put up my diagnosis, too. So here's what the DSM IV says about anxiety disorder, the bane of my existence.
Diagnostic Features
A. The essential feature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder is excessive anxiety and worry, occurring more days than not for a period of at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities
B. The individual finds it difficult to control the worry.
C. The anxiety and worry are accompanied by at least three additional symptoms from a list that includes restlessness, being easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and disturbed sleep (only one additional symptom is required in children).
D. The focus of the anxiety and worry is not confined to features of another Axis I disorder such as having a Panic Attack (as in Panic Disorder), being embarrassed in public (as in Social Phobia), being contaminated (as in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), being away from home or close relatives (as in Separation Anxiety Disorder), gaining weight (as in Anorexia Nervosa), having multiple physical complaints (as in Somatization Disorder), or having a serious illness (as in Hypochondriasis), and the anxiety and worry do not occur exclusively during Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
E. Although individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder may not always identify the worries as "excessive," they report subjective distress due to constant worry, have difficulty controlling the worry, or experience related impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
F. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (i.e., a drug of abuse, a medication, or toxin exposure) or a general medical condition and does not occur exclusively during a Mood Disorder, a Psychotic Disorder, or a Pervasive Developmental Disorder.
The intensity, duration, or frequency of the anxiety and worry is far out of proportion to the actual likelihood or impact of the feared event. The person finds it difficult to keep worrisome thoughts from interfering with attention to tasks at hand and has difficulty stopping the worry. Adults with Generalized Anxiety Disorder often worry about everyday, routine life circumstances such as possible job responsibilities, finances, the health of family members, misfortune to their children, or minor matters (such as household chores, car repairs, or being late for appointments). Children with Generalized Anxiety Disorder tend to worry excessively about their competence or the quality of their performance. During the course of the disorder, the focus of worry may shift from one concern to another.
Course
Many individuals with Generalized Anxiety Disorder report that they have felt anxious and nervous all of their lives. Although over half of those presenting for treatment report onset in childhood or adolescence, onset occurring after age 20 years is not uncommon. The course is chronic but fluctuating and often worsens during times of stress.
It's been a really rough week. Monday I had to give my developmental kids the same lecture I find myself giving to freshmen every semester. The this-isn't-high-school-and-I'm-expecting-you-to-act-like-adults lecture. The one that ends with, "And so if you don't want to do the work, don't come. When you do, you're wasting your time and mine." They got all grumpy and onry after that and whined about all sorts of things.
My honors kids weren't much better this week. I have one--Steven--who is driving me up the wall. I honestly don't know how he got into the honors college. I literally have to triple explain everything to him and then let his group go over things with him before he grasps what's expected.
It's just getting to be that time in the semester, though, when students get grumpy. The newness of college has worn off and we're only halfway to midterm and it seems like everything is stupid and worthless unless it's worth 99 percent of their grade. A week or two after midterms, they'll be back and cheerful and then they'll fall off again. But by then you only have the real troopers left, so it's not as horrid.
This is also the point in the semester when I get depressed and begin to undermine everything in my life. My students aren't responding: I must be a horrible teacher. I'm not accomplishing as much as I want to accomplish: I'm an utter failure. I sneeze at home: I'm the worst girlfriend in the entire world and Lady is bound to realize it any minute and leave me sobbing on the floor. You get the picture.
I've been this way for a while, though. I think it's time to talk to my counselor about upping my Paxil dosage. Sigh.
I'm nearly certain that this is my last semester of teaching at the honors college. This truly upsets me because my boss is one of my closest friends. Our stupid govenor, though, is still slashing education budgets left and right and all the college can offer me for next semester is one class. Period. The community college where I'm also adjuncting has three full-time positions open in the English department, starting with the January semester. I'm applying and, although there's very little chance that I will get it in the scheme of things, I'm hoping I can land one of those positions. It'll be such a relief to have someone else finally paying my health insurance.
The tutoring center where I also work is looking to take me on full time in January, too. That would mean a clock in and clock out job there, as opposed to my hourly pay for tutoring and prepping. While it's nowhere near as tempting as the cc job, I'll take it in a heartbeat if I don't get the cc job. It'd be such a relief to only be employed at one place. Besides, as much as I can complain about the situation at the center, I really like working with most of my students. And I don't mean that in the it's an okay job way; I mean that in the I'm excited to work with the kids and I have a blast doing it, no matter what else is going on in my life.
Now for the light and breezy part of my entry.
The Sheryl Crow concert is tomorrow night. I cannot wait. She's my second favorite singer and I've never seen her live and I just know that I'm going to have such a fantastic time.
I'm also going to the Aerosmith concert on October 2nd. This, too, will be awesome. Lady isn't going because she doesn't like either Aerosmith or the outdoor pavillion it's at. I'm going with Amanda, her fiancee Ben, and her other best friend Marla. We're going to celebrate Marla's 50th birthday and my 26th. Tickets are on Amanda and Ben.
And, last but certainly not of the least importance, Lady and I are getting DSL on Thursday (finally). I know, I know. This isn't that big of a deal anymore, but we've been pretty much straggling along on her income entirely. Now that my cc and honors paychecks are finally coming in, I have money. So..I'm treating Lady to this as a kind of thank you for the way she's been supporting me both financially and emotionally.
Oh, my. I got two vibrators today, so Lady would have less of a complex. Although I told her I was going. And, let me tell you, wow. Paxil, while making my day-to-day life so much easier (I have anxiety disorder), has wreaked havoc on my sex life. Since October of last year, I've only had three or four orgasms. But first try with my little purple vibrator and I was just about in heaven. It's been so long and it felt so fucking awesome. Now I'm just waiting for Lady to get home. I've been having some wonderful sex dreams about her lately and it's about damn time that we do something about that...
What a lovely day! It's in the upper 70s, sunny, breezy, and utterly delightful. I just had a wonderful class, and I know that I could definately do this for the rest of my life.
What's better: when I'm finished with this, I'm meeting Heather for lunch, and then she's going to take me on a vibrator buying excursion.
The only downside to this weekend is that I have 23 paragraphs and 32 essays that I need to at least make a dent in grading. Blah. Still, I could definately do this for the rest of my life.
Just got Wine for Dummies in the mail yesterday. I love half.com so much. I got the book, shipping and all, for under 8 dollars. Anyway, I figured that, since I love wine quite a bit but know absolutely nothing about it, I should educated myself. So...I'm already getting to be quite a wine snob. Of couse, I still, with current financial situation, drink my merlot from a box, but now I can at least look cool in the Deirberg's wine aisles.
Speaking of current financial situation, I am applying for a full-time position at the community college I'm adjuncting at. Minimum start pay is 41,062. How sweet is that? There are three positions open, and I think I really have a chance. I think I should know in a month or so. Keep your fingers crossed.
The only down side? I'm going to hate having to leave Honors if I get it. I don't know what I'd do without Nancy around.
Although I am deeply affected by this one year anniversary, I am also still profoundly irritated by our extreme Americanism. I mean, here we are, one year later, still bombing away at innocent Afghans because we think the perpetrator MIGHT be somewhere in Afghanistan. At the same time, our beloved president (that's right--intentional lower case "p") still thinks that he can bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Um...isn't he doing what he is trying to get other people to stop? Bombing in an effort to regain something that's been lost? And we have John Ashcroft, of all people, on television this morning talking about how America is a celebration of diversity. This from a man who, as govenor of Missouri, didn't think that African Americans and Anglo Americans should get the same pay. And there's Colin Powel with Matt Lauer this morning. He told Matt that the US had done everything it could to prevent the attacks last September. He was talking about the sneaky, governemental way of infiltrating the "bad guys" instead of the rational, humane way of informing the public before the fact that such an attack had been threated and could quite possibly be carried out. All this undemocratic behavior from the same people who think it would be wonderful to cover the world with democracy. Argh! Democracy is wonderful, but why does it have to be universal? Can't we just let other countries do what they damn well please? There's nothing wrong with a Spanish dictator; what's the big deal with an Iraqi dictator? Oh, wait! I forgot. There's oil in Iraq, and we want it. That's the American way: eternal self-preservation and domination at any cost. God bless us.
My students call themselves ultra religious. It's something they're proud of. I, too, could be considered ultra religious. I'm a Catholic (horrors!). I'm in a choir, I go to church every Sunday, I do what every decent Catholic should do. However, I do not claim to interpret the Bible literally, while a majority of my students do. This is why they damn homosexuals. What they fail to realize, though, is that there are far more condemnations of adulterers and burglars in the Bible than there are of homosexuals. When I point out that the Bible, which they all say they know well and live according to, also says that a menstrating woman must be secluded in a hut and blessed before returning to her husband, my students are at a loss for words. They admit that perhaps there is more that is archaic and inappropriate in the Bible.
I do not retract my statement that a number of my students are uber conservative. They are. They look at the world in black and white, good and bad. Any experienced adult knows that there is no such thing. Everything is gray, somewhere in between good and evil. It is unforgivable to judge a person solely on one part of who they are. As a country, we regret doing this to Communists in the 50s, African Americans in the 60s, memebers of the women's movement in the 70s. There's always one, or more, scapegoat groups in our society. My students are merely a product of the society in which they were raised. They insist that a mother-father partnership is the best way to raise a child. Single parenthood is detrimental to children, they say. They also convulse at the idea of a father-father partnership or a mother-mother partnership. Why? If they tell me that two parents are better than one, what's wrong with same sex parents? Which is a worse evil? Same sex parents or single parents? They say same-sex, therefore contradicting their earlier "two is better than one" statement. I challenge anyone to find me a scientific study that disagrees that what any child truly needs is a loving, welcoming, comforting home. And this type of home can be provided by any number and combination of people, depending upon individual circumstances.
Let us consider that homosexuality is immoral, along the lines of murder and robbery. Murder is immoral; who will deny that the taking of a life is wrong? Robbery, if it is immoral, is so because one person chooses to interfere in the life of an innocent person. These two have in common one thing: they are inacted by one person upon an unwilling participant. Homosexuality in itself has nothing in common with murder and robbery. Unless we're discussing homosexual rape, the act is mutual. Therefore, I cannot see how one can term it immoral, since the only thing that can make both murder and robbery immoral is the fact that they're not desirable to the person upon whom they're committed.
My mother is one of my closest friends. What I have in my partner is nothing that I feel lacking from my mother. Freud went out in the late 20th century and with him went his ideas that one seeks in their sexual partner what they lacked from a parental unit.
You were rather quick to brush off my accusing you of judging me. While you may see it as another one of my useful fabrications, I don't. You ended your first note by telling me that I am not being honest with myself. How can that be taken as anything but judgement from someone who knows next to nothing about me? Any one of my close friends will admit that I am one of the most self-honest people they have ever met. In fact, my realizing my sexuality is a prime example. I was in Catholic schooling from pre-school through 12th grade. I've gone to church every Sunday of my life, except for once when I was too sick to roll over muchless get out of bed. I am a wonderful example of one who is positively imbued with Catholicism and, therefore, homophobism. It was not easy to overcome my entire upbringing, to begin to question everything I once knew as unquestionable. But after a lot of soul searching I realized that I was a lesbian and could do nothing to change that. Just as sleeping with someone of the same sex is utterly repulsive to you, sleeping with men is utterly repulsive to me. When I make love to Lady, I know that what we're experiencing is the full, complete, and selfless love that Catholicism tells you to save yourself for. While I wasn't wise enough to save myself for Lady, I'll be damned if I'm going to give this love up now that I've found it. As difficult and traumatizing as it is, I listen to my heart and love accordingly.
Check out my last paragraph in my last entry where I wrote about total strangers judging me. Then read the comment left in which a total strange judges me.
Just thought I'd prove to whomever reads this that total strangers do feel that they can judge me purely on the sex of the person I choose to spend my night with.
I walk into the room.
"Nice shoes," says Jen.
"Thanks. I really like them myself."
"They're shiny," says JoAnn.
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
"I don't know. It's a thing."
"Hey," says Jen to JoAnn and their buddy Jennifer, "she's got toe rings, too. How cool!"
Says JoAnn, "Well, she's only four years older than us."
I smirk at this and start handing papers back. It's cool when my students think I'm only 21. It makes my early-life crisis feel silly.
Of course, it returned with a whomp when they reminded me that they were born in 1984 and 1985.
Class went well, though. Now my afternoon class doesn't seem so daunting. I teach a really good bunch of kids. I feel blessed. Albeit, a number of them this semester are ultra religious and uber conservative, which never ceases to shock me. I mean, they are so pro-family values that they think a child isn't whole unless he or she grows up in a house with a mother and a father. And they insist on believing that homosexuality is a "choice," not to mention a wrong one. Okay, not all my students think like that, but a larger than usual number of them do this semester.
Now, someday I'm really going to go off. I mean, who the hell would choose this kind of lifestyle? One where your family and friends don't accept your partner and don't believe you're truly in love. One where so many people think you're in a phase or being rebelious. One where total strangers feel that they can judge your entire character by the sex of the person you snuggle up to at night. One where what you feel is not "real" love. One where you can't go in public as a couple without being ridiculed--or worse. One where you're not a person. I mean, if this is a choice, I must be a lot more fucked up than I think to consciously make it and know this is how I want to be for the rest of my life.
Well, got all moved into Lady's. Thank god. Moving overwhelms me. I kept crying and feeling on the verge of panic attacks. Mom is awesome, though, and looked out for me. Lady was awesome, too, if slightly less understanding. Mom works in mental health.
Now, every single thing that I own is stacked up in Lady's basement. Gah! I feel like I'll never get through all of it.
I have a yeast infection, which is irritating as hell. Also, I have diagnostic writing samples to go through from my basic writing kids. I'm not sure how those two ideas connect, but I can assure you that it seemed like a logical transition in my head.
I think I'll go call Jules, Lady's friend. She left me a message about my apartment the other day that I have yet to return. I'm hoping she'll invite us up to her boat tonight. That'd kick ass.
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