blowing it away blowing me away

[fflo]

I'd opened this window to say how I was thinking about being in Oregon years ago just after Lorne had somehow (how I didn't know, it blew my mind how) up & deleted Tetris from his computer, as it'd been sucking him in to wasting his time for hours & hours. I still could barely imagine how cool it would be to be able to play Tetris free, whenever you wanted, at home, and there he had DELETED it off the MACHINE, out of some bizarre notion that he'd prefer, overall, in his better judgment, not staring into the thing for hours. Instead of doing other things he could imagine that he could be doing.

So I was thinking about this (about him and then), as I'd been wasting time playing a move-the-shapes game not even as good (or new)---to the extent that I was sitting here at work longer than I needed to be, clicking and swiping and racking up meaningless points. And then my phone "rang," and it was Lorne.

Really he was calling about the book thingie coming up. Seemed like it was also a voice from Elsewhere saying to stop clicking and stand up and get the hell outta here.

'Course I've also been doing email & such. But point taken, voice. Dumb game window closed.

Speaking of computers, I'm back to leaning away from a notebook/laptop. Good breeze comes up and that'll about do it. (That's how far I'm leaning.)

Doctor visit went fine, btw, if anybody's wondering. My cholesterol is notably down, and my blood sugar is delicious. Doc was charming, and we both did some laughing. Imagine that.

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

you really hate it, dontcha. dude.

hearing your tales, as you know, can put me in mind of the lower-rent (community college) version of such a mission i used to be engaged in. 'cept i don't remember students getting pissed off, so much. for the most part. not so much assertion of entitlement, either, whether for thinking they'd jumped through enough hoops or whatever else, like that they'd paid (or arranged for) tuition & that was the "price" of a passing grade, so cough it up already.

that place sapped my spirit, but my outrage at it rarely felt like it came from the attitude of the students.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that's probably what's bothering me about the depth of this: that the students have been trained by the institutions to expect shite and to wallow in it, and then to protest anything else.

what's worrying me is that it's messing with my sense of competence about what my job is.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

off the top of my head i find myself wanting to suggest that ---in and within those f&cked up circumstances, and given the constraints of (a) the administration & (b) your position within the faculty & (c) your particular students (and their attitudes AND preparation/abilities)--- maybe you still get to decide some of what your job is gonna be. and declare yourself competent to do so, regardless of what any of them f&ckers think. like, there's what the institution wants you to do & be doing, and there's what the students want you to do & be doing, and/but in order not to be dragged into the mean streets & run over by those, maybe it's a good defense (against the bad crazy & the death) to decide for yourself what you're going to make (at least some of) your job be to do & be doing.

i realize these sentences are pretty badly made. i think there's a legit thought behind them, but you might not suspect it. :}

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

i suspected it all along :) these seem like good thoughts to me. i think i can live with those.

i don't know if it's something about me as a person (including gender) or some other kind of thing, but i feel very weird disciplining anyone and these seem to want to be disciplined. there's always some kind of tug of war: the moment you relent, there's someone to "take advantage" of the moment in which to cut a corner or get off at a sale rate.

it feels like i'm being made to teach high school and i'm openly told to 'socialize' students and i have no interest in either.

i'm hoping to get to a point where i know what the job is and i'm not bothered by massacres i have to commit.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

it feels like i'm being made to teach high school and i'm openly told to 'socialize' students and i have no interest in either.

i suspect, sad to say, there is many a mickey mouse institution in this country that would seem to be (and openly be) asking the very same thing of ya.

are the massacres the "letting" some fail?

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that, or making them drop; or failing them for doing nothing (to which they respond that they are surprised at this novel idea of having to do work for a grade; they had never had to do it before); or failing them for absences/tardiness.

it may be better if i knew more about other places where madness is common.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

well i think you maybe pegged that (kinda madness) when you said "high school." but the trump card is that they don't have to go to college. and you don't have to be a disciplinarian, exactly, to be an enforcer of standards.

i know it sucks to be enforcing them when you know others aren't, others haven't. and here these folks can barely believe (or at least so they would have you think) that you're actually going to do it, no matter how clear you are, and have been, about it.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

that's what i keep thinking--they don't have to go--that's what i remember all the sane people thinking and saying. but the problem here is also that i'm surrounded by the white ladies who *love to save them, to make sure they pass, who enjoy condescending them and making them believe they are doing well when they are not.

today, as seen on the copier: (teacher's comments on a draft) "you have layed [sic] out the information very clearly...you just need to tell us what your topic is...you are starting to shine as a scholar!"