So what?

So what if I’m “smart” or “well read” or even a “great poet”. What am I even doing?

Right now I think my biggest problem is balancing what I decided to be when I grew up with what I think that implies.

One of my first lectures during the Master of Arts in Teaching program dealt with the notion of moral agency—this ended up being one of the things that bothered me about teaching high school, that sort of fishbowl feeling that accompanies being both an authority figure and moral agent, whereas college professors (should be) exempt from people caring about what they do and who they like to do it with on a Friday night. High school teachers aren’t allowed to have marital problems or be emotional; you end up being an actor. Some of this inconsistency comes from K-12 being required and college remaining “optional”.

The MAT program also sent my first reading to me pre-underlined. How nice.

Anyway, I was having a conversation with one of my professors and the subject of my being a professor someday came up because, in his words, I would “kick ass at it”. I told him I felt that actually wanting to be a professor implied arrogance to me; as though I thought I would ever be good enough.

Right now I feel as though I will never know enough, but that I know something now. I think I am more confused as a graduate than I was when I first began. Am I supposed to feel like I understand anything? All I can do now is beat people at Jeopardy!, explain some armchair physics and talk about conspiracy narratives in American politics. All of this makes me either fun or boring at parties, depending on who is there.

It’s hard to balance the necessity of writing at all with the knowledge that in some sense you are speaking to “the record”. It’s your record, so continuing is important. How do you do that without a) getting depressing and quitting and/or b) morphing into a douche?

I wonder what the point is frequently. God, why am I not doing something useful? But part of me knows that this experience is worth it.

For Alex, and possibly others

One of the reasons I procrastinate so frequently with my own writing—and end up taking grade hits because of this—is because I too wonder if I will ever say anything new or different about the period of history I’m tackling at that moment. My last two papers as an undergraduate for my field dealt with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the historical accuracy/death of the book/blah blah blah portrayals of Nazi Germany in film. They have taken a really unacceptable amount of time to finish simply because they’re they keys of the apprenticeship. I can’t get excited about the Third Reich anymore. A good percentage of my writing time is spent with my finger hovered over the delete key as I contemplate sending my professor a page that reads: Nazis suck. Read a book. The end.

I think one of the things that caused me to flee to political science in the first place was the idea that I might actually one day make a case that was new, or have something even remotely interesting to say about It All. So much of it feels like a response to a response to a response.

Perhaps what makes our own contributions valuable is not that they’re echoes of long dead people, but that we can have our own Benzedrine fueled rolls down lost highways. We romanticize the past and the accomplishments of the artists we study, not realizing that we’re part of that record, that there will eventually be a name for the best of us, and that it would be stupid to even suggest that we’d be part of that echelon. Part of me is depressed like you, but I have to keep working. We have to keep working.

I imagine if I were to keep at it, silly Wikipedia entries for all of us which high school students will try to cite in their papers.

This probably doesn’t make any sense.

We need teachers, yes we do

Oh, this made me laugh so hard I cried. It’s a good thing no guests came by the lobby. I can’t think of a better way to save the world than to be a teacher.

Note: I suppose we technically didn’t let Nazi Germany host the Olympics. Rather, Weimar Germany was given the nod and Nazis used the fragmented coalition system of the Reichstag to take power and utilized a clause in the Weimar constitution that allowed Hitler to take complete power of the government.

Wee, history degree…

Looking over April, and life ahead

I managed to write eleven poems in April for NaPoWriMo, which is much better than last April where I think I finished zero. Way to aim high there, Angela. I’m going to send chapbooks to Mike and Shannon as soon as I finish up some other writing that’s been lingering in boxes I haven’t unpacked yet. I will bring a few copies to Ashland with me.

I’m excited about the political theory class, though I wonder what I’m getting myself into taking a new professor for the first time as a 500 level student. I suppose the situation would be no different at PSU.

I’ve been setting aside time to read so that my nonfiction writing will strengthen although this is difficult in light of how much time I spend comatose and/or fending off money induced panic attacks.

Everything will be okay.

Strangely part of something, oh shit that was an -ly word!

I know I am not in a position to demand anything, but I demand we have a scene party when I come back, or at least go out somewhere and find out where everyone is at.

re: napowrimo 08

I am compiling a chapbook to be distributed in May: Letters For/From Veronica. If you would like a copy, please email me. They will be free.

galvan dot as at gmail dot com

And yes

I’m fully aware that it’s a double standard for me to say it’s selfish and stupid for me to write anything autobiographical in a public space when I welcome such entries from others. I will add this to my growing pile of self-imposed double standards, which at this point stacks so high that if it falls I will die in my sleep.