Dreamworlds

We watched the third Dreamworlds documentary last night in my Gender class. It was deeply upsetting for many reasons that I'm still trying to figure out.

Then I came home and dreamt I started yelling at a random guy in a coffee shop who assumed that Thailand was under a tyrannical government. And I also dreamt that I'd sent really awful emails to people I didn't mean to send them to and woke up terrified that I had don this in real life.

Definitely need a break.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh

So today I was feeling a bit sad about leaving and graduating. I made plans to visit my cousin and potential PhD programs over spring break and all around I just felt glum. I dislike the anticipation of endings more than the actual ending itself.

So anyway, I was in the library making myself write emails that prove I am worthy as a potential academic asset, (well, really, I was talking about doing this and swapping youtube vdos with my thesis buddy. We decided there are two kinds of academics: those of us who see interesting things and want to talk about them, and those who read the learned books and then have to use them to talk about things) when I got an email from Campus Ministry asking if I could possibly maybe PLEASE be a last minute trip advisor for the Jamaica service trip?! JAMAICA. I ASK YOU. After I buy my non-refundable tickets to North Carolina!

Strange as this may sound, that actually made me feel a lot better. I'm connected here. People know me, people like me, people trust me. I've done well. I'll stay connected, somehow.

Then the fire alarm rang. (I bet it was an undergrad being stupid, little git.) And I realized it was almost midnight, I didn't have my student id, and I'd forgotten my apartment key at home so I needed to get back before my roommate went to bed. I took it as a sign that I should leave the library. Some things just can't be argued with.

Life as Fractured Design

This is a stanza of a song I like at the moment:

She is the fractured one sewn
From sums of fractured time
Her heart speaks a fractured tongue
Her life is fractured design

(from Babelonia, by School of Seven Bells)

Right now I feel like I'm simultaneously looking forward, trying to figure out the future, thinking over the last few years and processing how I've grown and changed, and trying to keep the present together and get everything DONE. I don't always know how to organize my energy or where to focus.

Also, midterms mean that hordes of undergrads have invaded my library. They are loud. I want to hit them. The stress levels of everyone I encounter are astronomically high. Sorting out what is my stress and what is their stress is draining. Everyone feels uncertain.

I'm ready for break.

The places we left behind

On my way to campus today, I was thinking about Thailand. And how I thought for many years that I had to cut myself off, leave it behind. I'm so glad I learned I didn't have to do that. I'm currently reading an application essay written by a fellow (dear) TCK friend from college. She talks at length, with passion, about the land where she grew up, and I wanted to cry. I recognize that passion. I think it probably shows in my own work. (At least I hope so.) We can never leave our homes behind. These intricate interconnections that can't always be explained but still drive us. We are multiplicities.

Hope is a thing with feathers

Admittedly that is the only line I know from that poem, and I'm too lazy to look up the rest. But at the moment it seems to reflect the fragility of "hope." Random thoughts ahead.

I've always taken the "safe" path, in some ways. Because I knew I had to make sure I had housing and healthcare.

Someone asked me how I felt about my upcoming birthday, (three months away, yes, I love birthdays, don't judge), being closer to thirty and all that, and I said I feel like I'm finally at the age that everyone always assumed I was, so I don't really mind.

I had a very satisfying conversation with a professor yesterday who seemed to think I could just change up a scheduled meeting solely for him. I told him I had to balance the needs of the entire committee with my own (extremely) limited office hours. So he was like, do you have another part time gig? No, I told him, I'm a full time student. I'm writing my thesis. I'm taking a grad class. I facilitate two different student discussion groups. I'm on the Com Grad Student Council. I TA for an undergrad class. I also am an editor on the graduate journal. I think I probably forgot some things. But I was like, yeah, professor. I DO STUFF AROUND HERE. Lots and lots of important stuff.

It is nice to feel competent.

Draft Two - Mostly complete

Today was the first day I got home before dark, since, I don't even remember when. But draft two is mostly completed and out of my hands. Now my brain feels like it's melting.

Also, I dreamt last night about editing papers and in my dream, the papers were perfect. When I woke up, I was really annoyed because they still needed to be written/edited/finished. I'm sure this means something. Probably that I need to do other things with my life.

Someone asked me today if I have time to write on the side. (I think she meant creatively.) It was hard to know how to answer. Because no, I do not write poetry or fiction at this point in time. I don't think that's really my forte anyway. It would be hard to explain to her that my academic writing requires a lot of creativity, although it also very technical.

I do feel pretty satisfied with this draft. I know it still needs work but it felt more solid. This feeling of satisfaction makes me very happy. It's craft. And it comes from my soul. So... yeah. Not on the side. Writing is all I'm doing (it feels). It's nice to see positive progression.

Learning to be Invisible

(And then Visible again.)

Tonight in the class I TA for, one of the full instructors told a story about her (white) husband in Japan, realizing what it meant to be "hyper-visible," to be looked at, and laughed at, and, at times, unwanted.


In a discussion later, I told her about my almost opposite experience, when I returned to the States and suddenly had to deal with being INVISIBLE. I had never before connected this sudden invisibility with my struggle with depression. But after thinking tonight, I'm sure this was a part of it. I had gone from a place where my extreme visibility was, at times, uncomfortable and sad and painful (denoting, as it did, "not belonging"), to a place where I was completely "normal" and invisible (but still "not belonging"). I would be in Walmart and suddenly realize that I was surrounded by all White people. It was strange and unsettling.

I am sure that this contributed to my overall CERTAINTY that I did not matter, would not be missed, and therefore was not real, in some way that I couldn't express but felt so strongly. This invisibility allowed me to pass through my college without any flags going up. No one would have pegged me as depressed. My grades did not suffer. I had no outer markers of outsider status, so no one paid attention. (At least, that's how I felt. I am aware that my perspective is deeply, deeply mired the painful place I was inhabiting at the time.)

I believed I was invisible, so I acted invisible. I think this was most harmfully manifested in the fact that I stayed at a job after I graduated because I didn't believe that I was worth anything else. (Of course this was complicated by my need for insurance and of course money, but I do think that if I had a different opinion of my own worth, I might have been more willing to look longer or fight harder to be valued by my employers.)

I am still trying to unlearn this self-imposed invisibility. Coming to grad school was a culture shock of almost similar proportions. A friend asked me today what the best thing about grad school has been. I told her it was realizing that I have skills and strengths that are valuable, that are REAL. I told her it was the feeling of belonging. (I told her the worst thing was feeling like I have to be smart all the time, haha.)

So this is a goal for me, as I'm finishing up here: to be willing to be visible. To believe in my own value. To let people see me.

A geography of becomings

I love that phrase, which I came across in my thesis reading (where else?). I like the dynamic of "becoming."

Yesterday my old roommate invited me to go to NYC. Since I felt that I spend far too much time in the library, and I love city adventures, I woke up early and got myself down to the bus station. On the train in I got to overhear some Nova students bragging about how they cheat. This was just really odd to me. I don't know why that is something to be proud of, and also, I thought it was stupid of them to talk about it on a public train.

NYC was cold and rainy, but we still had a great time. I'm always in awe of how confusing the Metro system is compared to Philly's subway. We visited some of old roommate's friends, and it was really funny because in the apartment they are subletting was a truly beautiful photo of the King and Queen of Thailand. It was one of the ones from early in their reign, in sepia without a background, but with the royal insignias.

Old roommate's friends told me I was the first person who recognized the monarchs, and that they had initially assumed it was a photograph of the owner's parents. It was so interesting to be sitting so far from home and yet see a distinct reminder of Thailand. I guess it was comforting to think that even when my parents have left, I will still be connected to Thailand, even if it's just in moments like these. Someday, I'll get back to studying the royal photographs, maybe extending to the Thai diaspora.

We then visited the Guggenheim. I had never been there. I got really annoyed with the audio guide. I prefer to read about things instead of having people prattle in my ears, particularly when they make such decided statements about the intentions of long dead artists, because really, how do they know? Also, there was a bit about making the "exotic" accessible for Western audiences and that kind of attitude just really pisses me off. So I took off the headphones and just looked, which was extremely enjoyable. What struck me as I was looking at one of Picasso's odd portraits was how that particular artistic movement (and I get the terms all mixed up so I won't use them) made the familiarity of the human form so fantastic and strangely beautiful. I thought the spiral architecture was just fantastic also. As I wandered upwards I was ashamed to realize that I have not yet been to the Philadelphia Museum of Art since I moved down here. That will have to change soon.

We had dinner in Korea-town and it was just wonderful. I want to do these kinds of trips more. Maybe make my way through the major cities of the Eastern seaboard. I haven't been to Boston yet, and there is a museum there about His Majesty that I need to visit.

When I got back, I made my way to my current roommate's birthday party in Old City. In my great wisdom (and pure cussed stubbornness, might I add), I ended up walking from 30th Street to 3rd. This was because I didn't feel like taking the subway, and old roommate needed something from Chestnut St, so I went there with her intending to catch a bus. There were no buses. I didn't want to pay for a cab. So I just kept walking, thinking about how stupid I was being. But I also was thinking, I like this place. It is mine.

You know you're in Grad School...

...when you are reminded that the Super Bowl is happening this weekend and your first thought is, "Oh, that will be a great time to hit up the library! No one will be there!"

I am afraid I am that grad student.

On a related note, I have reached 18 pages on my rewrites, and that's even before all the new theoretical content I need to add. I think my days of written brevity are over. Under duress, of course.

I know what I have to do. I just don't want to do it. (Well, I do want to do it. Just... not right now.)

Just a little longer

"The microwave just broke," my mom told me. "We're hoping the fridge will last just a few months longer."

This is the weird time of the transition; long enough to have appliance failure be a serious inconvenience but far too short to buy a new one.

Sometimes it feels like life is just a series of trying to make things last, just a little bit longer, until the next place, the next apartment, the next big change. Just making do, for now.

I think maybe it's time to invest in things that will last a bit more than just a little longer.