Saturday, March 4th, 2006

BC? More like BS

On monday I had an interview with Boston College, which I had been told would last about an hour. So, I set aside a good hour in my schedule at practicum to devote to it. Having just survived three 45-minute long interviews with Oregon, I was aware that time could fly. So, I'm there waiting... and waiting... until 3:10 when they finally give me a jingle. And the interviewer pretty much tells me to ask him any questions I may have before we start, which seemed rather odd to me. So i asked a few and he provided a simple 30 second response or something. We got into the questions he had for me, and they were some of the most retarded questions I had ever been asked. Nevertheless, I tried answering them, and left room in my response for him to ask a follow up question, but he didn't. He just moved on to the next abstract, question: How are you committed to social justice? I did my best, but I soon figured out that this was nothing but a waste of time for both of us. The hurried answers he provided, the disinterest to my lengthy responses and then the kicker: "Oh let's see, what else can I ask here, 'what's a book that has influenced you?'" What the crap? I told him that perhps "All the King's Men had been the latest book I had read that really intrigued me and drew some parallels between that and therapy, but he didn't care. ANd that was it. It was over by 3:20. I spent more time talking Melanie about how pissed I was about the interview than the actual interview itself. Hell, I could have seen a client, escoted them out, come back and done the phone interview with plenty of time to get the next client. Surprise, Surprise. I got rejected. Committment to social justice? How abou not looking over applicants cuz they're not rich enough to travel to your east coast?

Whatever.

I got my test in Ed Psych back on tuesday, and I think my test-taking skills have actually improved in grad school. I'm better at guessing. Before if I didn't know an answer, I would probably go with the one that looked most familiar to me. This time around, I used cues in other questions and then considered thepossibility that each response could be correct and sensed how it felt before answering. All in all not too shabby. I got an A. Personally, that's a great place to be at because all i need is a B. 

Well, all of last night I was working on the last two major things I have to worry about before I jet out of this town. These are the Thesis, and the stupid Portfolio, which I still hate, not because it's pointless busy work, but because the department tells you that it's not right to your face. I already turned all this crap in, why do i have to defend how it proves I'm a good counselor? Shouldn't the fact that I went through your crappy courses be enough? Regardless, I woke up this morning and finished it all. It's over. I'm sure that my adviser will want me to make some changes, but until then, it's over. Now I just have to ride out this week. and hopefully enjoy a nice long week of nothingness.

That's really all i wanna talk about for this week. 

Later.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006

Before I go...

Howdy everyone. I am in a rather good mood today, so I thought I would take this moment to talk about how awesome my day has been. Firstly, I was prett nervous about the Professor for my human sexuality course observing one of my sections- particularly the earliest one I have, in which I'm still trying to ascertain how things are supposed to work, but she said that ...

You have excellent rapport with the 
students and 
they demonstrated much comfort with you and the group 
discussion.  You were 
very affirming of all students' comments, and I was 
particularly impressed 
with the way in which you asked probing questions that made 
the students 
think more deeply about what they said and about what the 
issues are.

It's kinda funny how I'm getting positive feedback for an area that really doesn't interest me that much because I can engage students, but when it came to a topic that I absolutely LOVED (Spanish), I got negative feedback because i was told i wasn't engaging the students enough.

By the end of my third section though, I was so tired, that I felt like collapsing. I was supposed to meet with my advisor to turn in my Thesis, but he wasn't in his office so I just put it in his box. Then I talked with a student in my cohort who had spent a good 20 years of her life being a lawyer. I wanted to ask her some questions about law school because I think I might be heading in that direction should things not work out with a phd program. I felt good that she said that based on what she knew of me that I would love the analytical piece of law school and the challenge of it, but I was still not any closer to any conclusive decision by the end. If nothing, she was able to get me excited about the possibility of going to MN again. Recently, the failures at prac and applications have made me question just what I'm doing with my life, but she put things in perspective for me.

And speaking of which, I need to get finished packing cuz im leaving right after I'm done with my crap tomorrow. Wish me luck up there in MiniSoda.

Saturday, March 11th, 2006

Minneapolis, encore

By 8 o'clock in the evening, St Paul's skyline came into view. It had been a rather fast four hours in the car, mostly perhaps due to my new tires. Heaven only knows what would have occured, had I not replaced them after seven years. Yes, St Paul's skyline is ten times better than Madison's, which is really saying something since both cities stretch for the width of ten miles. I suppose that if not for the two lakes, Madison would have grown perpetually. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to drive by Minneapolis's skyline because the University is to the east of the Mighty Mississip, and even though I debated driving through and then heading to the hotel, I was tired of sitting down and just wanted to stretch. I took the exit I had been told and got to the Day's Inn with no fuss or muss. I remembered when the CP program at Madison put me up for a night in one of their hotels. It was impossible to get to, and when I arrived I learned that I had to pay for it out of my own pocket and that the Department would later reimburse me for it, so I was ready for the same deal here, but luckily, I was just given my key cards and told to head on up.

Before making my way to the elevator, I did ask the girl at the reception desk if she had any maps available of the city. I wanted to explore a bit. She was most helpful and actually gave me two, one of which I don't think I ever managed to read quite adequately, so I just ignored it. The other one was of the downtown area and how to get there from our present location.

Once I got up to my room I put everything on the bed and headed to the bathroom to relieve myself of four hours of pressure build-up, but before I could evacuate, the phone rang. I suddenly found myself in Bond mode. "Who would know I'm here?" I picked up and answered "Hello" and on the other end was the student in the department who had arranged my stay. I did not much like the feeling of being "tailed" so to speak. Someone - most likely the front desk- had alerted her of my arrival. Yes, I know that they were paying for it, but still. It just felt... unsettling to me. She told me that another prospective student had already arrived in the hotel and asked me if I had any plans. I told her that I had planned on walking around downtown. "Would you like company, or would you rather do that alone?" she asked.

Now, by this point everyone really knows the way I roll. I work alone, however, there was a part of me that wouldn't mind the company. In fact, I would welcome it. Maybe it was the fact that it was dark, and a new place, but still, I've done that sort of thing on my own before. Why should this be any different? "Sure, if she's up to tagging along, that would be fine," I said.

She told me that she would call the other student, named Grace, and see if she would want to come with me. Moments later I got another phone call, and this time it was from Grace letting me know that she was all for it, but that she would just need a few minutes to finish eating her food. In the meantime, I unpacked a bit and reviewed the maps in my hand. I did start wondering about Grace a bit. WHo was she? On the phone se had mentioned seeing me as I checked in. I did not recall seeing anyone but a frumpy grey haired woman. Could she have been Grace? Certainly not, a woman of that... design would never agree to such an endeaver.

Then, I got a knock on my door and opened it. It turns out that Grace was of Asian decent and didn't look to be that much older than me. We introduced ourselves to each other and with that began off. Grace has "smarts" written all over her. You can tell as soon as you meet her off the bat. Perhaps it is because she is from New York AND Los Angeles... and a few other places. But we immediately hit it off, or at least I felt as though we had hit it off and maybe she loathed every second of it, but something tells me she is relatively easy to make friend with.

I find that very few people of either gender can meet me where I am. Most don't really know how to interpret my strange quips or sharp wit, which admittedly is beyond my control and just shows up whenever it deems it necessary. There are two ways to 'keep up' with me. THe first is to feed into it, which often results in a sort of 'flow' in conversation. I say something, then the other person says something related, I make a joke, and they can run with it. While most of my friends have shown proficiency on this level, I think Funk qualifies here as the perfect example. The second method is to cut me down, which shows a tendency to be just as playful, even if it is in a rather mean manner, but usually there is no negative spririt behind these statements, as they are said just to keep the conversation going. I think Erinn did this the best out of anyone, but unfortunately we don't talk as much as we used to anymore.

It is rather disappointing that most people I come across choose the third option: to acknowledge, but not interact. In this scenario, when I say something, it is not ignored per se, rather I may get a chuckle, and then there's silence, becaue the other person does not know what to say. That can make for a long, boring conversaion, but luckily, Grace proved that she could definitely feed into my insanity. So, it was a pretty pleasant experience all around.

I found out that Grace went to Business School, joined the peace corps and went to teach English to children in Bangledesh, and was currently in LA working as a substitute teacher and a server at a coffee shop. Pretty awesome. I'm not sure how Starbucks came up but she began talking abut how much she hated big businesses, mostly because of her business degree. And when she started going off on the ridiculous Hummers that people drive in California, I couldn't help but think, "you vaguely remind me of someone."

At one point I started singing the theme song to the OC for her "California! California!" but I had to stop after we got some rather strange looks from passersby in a shady area. Later on she would talk about how she tries to remember everything with a song, so every event is stored in combination with a particular melody. I asked her, so what song are you gonna use to remember your trip to Minneapolis? She said that she didn't know, so I helped her out by singing the OC theme one more time.

I'm not sure how much we walked in total, mostly because we swerved in and out of the downtown area, but from the hotel to the nearest tip of downtown it is a total of exactly 3 miles. So I would say we spent a good 3 and ahalf hours walking 7 - 8 miles altogether. I took a few pictures, just in case that was the last time I would ever be up there too.  The gross part, by the end, the skin on the bottom of my left toe was peeling off!!

We had orientation the next day, which I always hate. They put you in a room and force you to mingle with people that you have nothing in common with or don't like. And then they drag all of you from location A to location B and the such, neither of which are very interesting. So after all of that description, lets get to the reason I went up there in the first place: how many hot guys in my potential cohort. The answer: 2. But one was particularly up there in hotness factor, and I admit that I was falling for him and when I learned that he was 31 my jaw nearly dropped becaus looked to be in great shape. However, when he revealed that he was married an had two kids, I started feeling immensely guilty, so I tried to distance myself from him.  I must admit that in retrospect, life is just not fair. The guy is from Chicago, likes Hemmingway, and was the only one who picked up on my literary references from Shakespeare to Agatha Christie. Sigh. Ordinarily, all of these similarities would wound me if a guy I liked was straight. Interestingly enough, it didn't matter to me this time. Perhaps this is because he was married, and I have this explicit rule against pining for someone who is married. Another possibility is that I've just gotten so used to having stuff in common with straight guys more than gay dudes, that I've learned to never expect anything to happen with someone that I share things in common. It's sooo not fair though.

Everyone needs a reputation. Or to put it a different way, reputations seem to follow me. And all that I was known for the entire day of orientation was "that dude who walked from the hotel all the way to downtown Minneapolis." I got so many weird looks.

"You walked from the hotel all the way to downtown Minneapolis?"
"Yeah. I like walking. it was fun."
"Are you doing it again tonight?"
"Probably"
"Wow! You'll be fine here. You're gonna be just fine."

But that was IF I chose to go there. And overall, I was not impressed. This all boiled down to funding and Minnesota failed to deliver anything I wanted to hear. This is mostly due to the fact that there are no positions for there students there. THey guarantee some type of assistantship the first year (maybe) and then you're on your own. And let me tell you, that after 2 years of not knowing where funding is going to come from, I'm rather sick of it that I don't want to have to put up with it for another 6 or 7 years. It would be even worse if I found an assistantship and it was on th East Bank of Campus or in St. Paul. Can you imagine how much time that would eat up? So, that might even extend the length of my time there even further.  At this point, I've run out of options. I have only one and a half left. Georgia said they would be interested in interviewing me and if I recall correctly they seemed pretty genuine. Also, I am on the wait list at Oregon, which has a friggin awesome dudes program in terms of funding because you're pretty much guaranteed an assistantship for your entire stay. Plus, there are no deliterious weather patterns to drain on your time, nor is it a large place so you can get to where you need to be pretty quickly. I've sent an email asking what my chances are there.

But I digress. Back to what I was saying about going from A to B, neither of which are very fascinating. They made us sit through a research day event, which lasted Two and ahalf hours. After the first two presentations, I subtley headed outside to catch some air. I listened to some messages I had on my phone, and took a shot of Downtown Minneapolis from the campus. I also took a lot of pamphlets in regards to transportation around the campus and city. I returned to the festivities once the question/answer poster presentation portion had started, so everyone was walking around talking and just being noisy. And if you're any decent friend of mine you know how I am with crowds, so I decided to explore the building a little bit, read a newspaper, and go outside again for another brief moment. They had so much food there, though that I had to go back up and get some strawberrys and grapes and canteloupe (sp).  I took the opportunity to get to know the prospective students some more.

In the end, I felt there like I felt after visiting U of I - overwhelmed and really unable to see myself being there very comfortably. Then again, I said the same about Madison, which turned to be rather true, but the point is that I just don't really like new situations all that much.

Everyone met again to have dinner by 5:30 and, again, you can imagine my discomfort being there, forced to converse with people I wasn't sure I liked that much. Grace had left after the research thing to catch her flight back. After I ate my chicken sandwhich, I casually went downstairs to use the facilities and when I returned, a few people sitting next to me said something like, "ah, you're back," or "so there you are" but what really made me think, was when one of the other prospective students said to me, "youre quite good and sneaking away." It wasn't the first tim I'd heard that, but it had certainly been a while. I started thinking that maybe I should have done something with my life that incorporated my stealth, my discomfort with new people and crowds, my natural suspiciousness of those around me, but short of being the best damned spy in the world, there are very few jobs that fit the criteria.

I said goodbye to everyone, certain that I would probably not see them again. More on that later. I got back to the hotel and rested for a few minutes. This would be my last night there since I was scheduled for only two days and checkout time was at 11 in the morning. I didn't know what to do exactly. SHould I walk back to downtown? Drive there? It was friday, so it would be kinda crazy. Why even go back there. Well, simply, there had been a certain part of downtown that I had not gotten to see with Grace. So I trekked down there and it took me forever to find what I was searching for- i remembered that the street that the Target Center was on was full of action, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldnt find it. I kept thinking, "I don't get it. I remember it is on First Street, but the numbers end after you get up to 3rd. It wasn't unil just by a fluke that i stumbled upon the area where I had parked my car the last time I was there- rightnext to the car dealership with the British flag. And that's when it dawned on me! It was on First AVENUE not first STREET. Sure enough, it was as busy as all get out, with weird clubs (aside from the Gay 90s) and shops.

It was then that I had a rather interesting idea. There was a girl in front of me and she was walking towards a club and then she showed ID and was admitted in. So then I thought, what if I had a club, and instead of being admitted based on age or what you're wearing, what if the criteria for admittance is pure wit? So basically, you have to be able to match up to a burly, highly intelligent bouncer and if you're a poser, you have to go to the other dives around there. We'd call it "At Wit's End" or some other cute name. Essentially, you'd have a room full of English Majors trying to prove how smart they are, which could get annoying, so we'd need really loud music to drown out that cacauphony. This would be a great alternative to the cool Nerd Bar idea he had up there. Boy, no wonder so many great minds are from the Twin Cities - ideas just come flooding into you up there.

My body felt like it was being ripped apart by the time I got back home. I think it was about three hours later, but after walking all of last night and most of the day that day, addin another three hours on top of that was pushing it. I had plans to do something in Minneapolis after checking out that morning, but being alone took away a lot of the motivation. So, I just left and now I'm back with nothing but time to think about what to do with my life, which has forced me to look forwards and backwards, and become rather irritable over the circumstances that have led me to this point. Moreover, I'm analyzing if I'm cut out for this line of work and feel that perhaps law school would be more up my alley. Either that or grad school for Literature.

So, if you ask me what's going on or what I have on my mind, here is a visual representation I designed as soon as I got back to demonstrate what is constantly going around and round inside my head. Any help on what to do would be greatly appreciated.

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

It's the "No Nandos Club"... you're allowed to have one.

You know, for going home and not hanging out with Becker, Chua, or Tony, I have a lot to write. Firstly, you 3 should be deeply ashamed for not putting your lives on hold and catering to my every whim. Now, that aside, let's get to the week in review.

I got home late on Monday and fell asleep. Then, on Tuesday, my godfather, whom I hadn't seen in six years came to visit. It was a rather interesting conversation as he talked about how the government is up to it's usual "chicanery" messing things up intentionally. ANd about how John Wayne no longer exists for kids. "Today's heroes are not respectable. They're more alone and less social. And it's all thanks to the liberal media." He's actually quite an intelligent man and couldn't help but think that Funk and Kuldhir would have loved to talk with him. The best I could do was just absorb all of it. At one point he mentioned that he had tried to go to law scool but he didn't really like it because of all the chicanery going on around there.

Having nothing else to do, I headed to the local blockbuster. I rented two new releases and it cost nine dollars! And then they wonder why they're in the hole. Anyway, I got Crash and A History of Violence. I must admit that I was really disappointed with History. While it delivered what it promised, I wanted to know more about the transformation. I won't ruin too much for people that ahaven't seen it, but basically, a man's violent past catches up with him when he saves his local cafe from a couple of thugs, but what I wanted to have them explore more were those three years when he tried changing who he was- what was that like? what were his thoughts? Why did he finally become who he became? All of these questions are skirted and we're treated to a lot of bloody gore. Be warned, this movie is gruesome. ALso, I felt that the family at the start of the film was WAY too ideal. I know that they wanted to have something to contrast with the main character's former life, but still.

Crash. It won best film. A lot of people took issue with it. I have not seen the other films. Crash is a great movie. THe characters are all very interesting with intriguing storylines that all intertwine. The message is a meaningful one about racism and prejudice. What struck me about all of the characters was that even though they each expressed some aspect of racism, it was never over the top. I couldn't label anyone as a racist because their prejudices were not their defining characteristic. In other words- they weren't two dimensional. Each had a separate set of worries to deal with and often had troubled lives that might have contributed to their beliefs. I felt it was real and many parts were incredibly moving.

I went to Borders in Lagrange (US-12/20) on Wednesday. As I was heading towards the door from my car, I carried myself with the usual swagger I've developed. I saw there was a young guy on the corner right outside the entrance. As usual, I'm wary of strangers, so I look away from him. He says "Hi!" to me. I respond back. "Howdy," as I continue to the entrance. I bear right with the curve. "How's it going?" He asks. "Fine. Thanks." I respond. Seems like a friendly type. I pull open the door to go inside and just as I walk in I hear him say "DAMN, you're cute!" I couln't help but smile.

When I got back, Erinn gave me a ring. She had called me the previous week and I had informed her of the ambivalence that I had recently been experiencing between Law School and Counseling Psych. Well, she called me just to let me know that she had told her father about me considering Law School and his response was "Oh, what a waste of a brilliant mind." She told me that her father thought very highly of me, which I had never known before.

So there you have it. That's pretty much my week. Everyone shunned me, so when Melanie let me hang out with her, I was overjoyed. Unfortunately, I proved to be too much for her feminine capabilities to handle and now I'm home. And Funk had to leave. Man, what's up with all this?

Tomorrow I have to clear someone for travel to Guatemala. I just have to fill out an assessment that says how competant they are in understanding and speaking spanish.  SHould be fun.

Also, before I go, I would like to make an announcement. Melanie will be inducted into the BBXers page on March 25th. This makes her the first BBXer to be added in two years. Way to be, Melon. Way to be.

Later

Saturday, March 25th, 2006

A parade for the Melon!

So, there it is in all it's glory - a picture of Melanie... on a website! Just click on the BBXer's webpage and you'll see her. So, there is where she will remain, until the end of time (as I stated on the forum, mostly because I'm too lazy to delete stuff). Look for her official page to launch during the summer time. Speaking of Melanie, she came over and I forced her to watch Contact, which was a pretty cool experience mostly becuase she had been under the impression that it was a horror movie about aliens. "I thought it was like Aliens but with Jodie Foster instead of Sigourney Weaver." Boy, was she surprised, and I think that by the end, she really enjoyed it. I think I have her pegged well enough now to know which movies she likes to say, "hey, I'd think you'd like 'Contact'" even if she doesnt believe me. I tend to be right about these things.

Movies that Melanie and I have watched together in no order:

The Matrix - she had never seen it and wanted to. I warned her it was kinda mindless at times, and true enough she didn't like it all that much
Minority Report - I think she enjoyed it, but that PreCog, Agatha, really freaked her out.
The China Syndrome - Melanie wanted to see this one and I think she enjoyed it.
Vanilla Sky - Admittedly, I was the one who said, "I think you would like 'Vanilla Sky'" and boy was I wrong. I think I also didn't like it as much the second go-round.
First Contact - aint nobody in the world that dislikes First Contact. I mean, sure it's star trek, but once people move beyond the stereotype, they all agree that this is one really good movie just in general.
Bourne Movies - I forget exactly what she thought of these, but it wasn't a bad reaction (after watching the first, she thought she could handle the second).

Goldeneye - She got into the action scenes a lot more than I thought she would
Tomorrow Never Dies - she still raves about the cool Bike Scene, and it remains her favorite of the three I made her watch.
The World Is Not Enough - I think Melanie made fun of Christmas Jones more than any of the other people I have watched this movie with. There's a break in sisterhood!

Contact - probably the best reaction I've gotten out of her yet.

So based on all this data, I can conclude that she would enjoy a few other movies and I think that I'm gonna try to see them with her if she wants before we part ways. And as I look over them, most tend to be science fiction, but thats mostly because that's the genre I like most. I think Gattaca, AI, and Dark City would all get a positive review from her. We also should watch Glitter at some point since I promised her that we would.

Till next time.

Tuesday, March 28th, 2006

Man, I don't even know...

Sometimes I feel like I should turn my back on this profession and seek another path. Essentially, I just can't stand being in my prac class or at my prac site and I wouldn't really mind this discomfort under any other circumstances, but prac is like the backbone of the whole degree. Every day, I get to prac and I'm just in a really crappy mood. Why? Because I have retarded paperwork to do for people who don't even show up, clients scheduled, 50% of which don't bother cancelling before they decide to no show, and just a really boring time looking at the wall for ten hours. But at this point I have given up. If I don't have clients scheduled, I just leave now. I mean, what's the point of being there. Besides, I have tons more fun hanging out with Melanie before having to return to my prac site for that group I co facilitate, which i guess isn't all that bad, but I have to admit that I was so demoralized yesterday, that I couldn't even cheer up enough to say anything in group. I was completely worthless.

Then there's the class that goes with it. All of the cohort meets every tuesday for two excrutiating hours. Much like the site, I get really angry having to be there. This reminds me of that Consultation course that we had to take over the summer, and Melanie simply hated it to no end. But the only difference is that there are about 15 students fewer in this course and we all sit in chairs forming a circle, so i can't hide behind someone and work on my writing like I did last summer. Also, after the class is over, I feel a tremendous wave of jubilation bursting out of me! I'm freee! And I would jump for joy if I hadn't been rushing from one place to another for the previous 8 hours on Tuesdays.

I've managed to get all of my frustration with my practicum site out with my departmental supervisor, but I haven't talked to him about how I feel during that class, which is probably for the better. I would say that it was all me, but I really don't remember feeling like I was suffering when we had Dr. Q running the course last semester. It's kinda humorous in that my supervisor, Patrick, managed to get me to consider going to Minneapolis for my PhD again this morning due to his analysis of me, but it all evaporated upon entering that blasted course... and bad prac experiences, which I am now conceding is a 'negative' experience altogether not only in the mathematical sense, as I once referred to it, but also as a pejorative value. I mean, when I get to my prac site, and the first thing that greets me is a locked office to which nobody has the keys except for one dude who works upstairs and is not even there when I need him half the time to give me the keys, which I have to run down with and back up to return them, I just feel like smashing something! Argh!

But soon, it all just fades away and I return to my original state of just being content, which I must admit is a rather new development for me. But still, the fact that I am miserable in this program's last breaths does raise my eyebrow. Does this mean it is true for all programs, or is it just this one because I don't think I can stand four or five more years of this.

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

In the larger scheme of things

I went to talk with Dr. Q today at his request. He felt it necessary to check in on me and how I was doing. He went through a few reasons why I wasn't accepted into the program here, which i appriated since I feel I deserved that much. He said something interesting. Something along the lines of that the department felt that I wasn't adhering to the social norms established for counseling psychologists, who tend to be more vocal and attentive. He said they weren't too big a deal for him and he was in my corner, but that others didn't feel like he did.

This reinforced my belief that I just can't fit in anywhere. No matter where, I go I can never consider it my home. I don't have and havent had a relationship in five years to necessarily guide me towards any direction. My family consists of my mother and father who both reside in Chicago, but that's a rather dangerous place for which I don't have fond memories. There are very few people who understand me and beyond that, that can tolerate me - good people, but we usually have to go our separate ways for one reason or another after two years, or so. 

It takes a particular person, I suppose, to put up with me and my personality (the positive and negative components). I mean, my best friend in college was a guy named "Funky."

I am inclined to believe that I am not willing to compromise who I am for the sake of any town, any profession, any person. But it would be extremely myopic of me to externalize all of this. After all, one could argue that the only thing that every place I have been to have in common is myself. Perhaps there is a piece of me that does not wish to fit in anywhere and rejects everything based on the apparent differences. It would certainly explain a lot. If this is something I carry within myself, and if indeed I do refuse to compromise who I am, then I cannot see things ending well.  

Thursday, March 30th, 2006

crawl

A student in one of my sections said something very interesting to me yesterday. He's a bright guy so I find it to be an honor that he chooses to discuss stuff- no matter how trivial - with me from time to time. Anyway,  he mentioned that I looked a bit morose the last few discussion sections. I suppose all of the recent crap going on has a lot to do with that. The odd thing is that I can usually tell when I'm just not caring about looking like hell, and I really felt that in my discussion sections, I could put all of my stuff away and put on a show. But as the student said, "youre definitely not the same fernando that started out." Ironically, discussion sections are all i tend to care about anymore. Class: gone (though I do still care about my undergrad Ed. Psych course since I have to get a B in it, though whereas I strived for an A before, now I really do only care about a B), Prac: 11 days (177 hours) left and counting, though theyre stretched out among the last 6 weeks we have.