Mike’s Musings

So, after years and years of doing yoga, I’m used to inversions.  But the inversions I’ve had these past two weeks have really sent the blood to my head — in pounding, gushing waves of frustration and thinly veiled anger.  We’re talking borderline hostility.

Classes have been irritating.  Malaise and laziness has set in.  Resistence feels rampant, but I know that in most classes, the resistence is from just a few, but it’s enough to put the drop of ick in the fishtank that will infect all the other fish at some point.  Whining.  Wanting entertainment, not education.  I nearly lost it twice in class this week.  Nothing pisses me off more than apathy and intellectual laziness.

But today, a breakthrough.  In two of my classes — who have mostly been fighting the material we’ve been covering — we got somewhere.  I was able to reach them.  It felt good.  Really good, especially in my one really difficult and quiet class.  Then, after, a co-worker and I put some six-word memoirs our students have written on our office doors, and that was fun.  It is so neat to see something they did “published” like that, and I can’t wait to show them on Monday.  They’re going to love it.

 So, after days and days of mental and emotional gulag, I experienced freedom.  For a bit.  Then it was snatched away again.  Now it’s back a bit.  More inversions.  Whiplash inversions.  Blood pounding in my head.

Namaste… MS

So today I’m feeling very irritated/insecure about how long it’s taking to hear whether or not I got the tenure-track position.  The more I think about it, the more it bothers me, and I know that I just need to be patient.  The hiring process in academia is agonizingly slow and torturous, which I think is meant to not only give academics a chance to overanalyze every possible outcome and nuance (which we already get paid to do), but to also weed out the weak of heart, mind, and spirit who dare to venture into the process.

Today I feel weak of heart, mind, and spirit.

Then I think about the folks who interviewed before me by a good month or two.  They’ve been in the process much longer than I have.  My current job isn’t going anywhere for the near future, so I have a measure of security; I don’t know the circumstances of the others.  What’s hard for me is I already work at the school.  I see the hiring committee members every day.  The decision that has yet to come down is looming over my head daily.   I’m ready to know:  Yes or no?  That’s all I want to hear.  No build up.  No set up.  Just a one-word answer either way, so that I can celebrate or cry.

Yesterday I wrote about submerging the ego.  I wrote of tamping down the ego.  Today my ego is front and center.  Or should I say that my insecurities and anxieties are front and center?  You decide, Gentle Reader.  You decide.

Namaste… MS

So yesterday I had the students in one of my classes read from letters, email, and journal entries from soldiers who have died in Iraq.  Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, so it seemed especially appropriate and important to honor their words, experiences, memories, and names by reading their words.

The writings originally appeared in a Newsweek issue last April called “Voices of the Fallen”.  Family and loved ones gave Newsweek permission to print them, so it’s clear those closest to the soldiers felt it important to share the soldiers’ stories with the world.  For that, I am glad, and if I could thank them all individually, I would.  So my way of saying thanks was to have my students step outside their comfort zone (emotional, physical and/or political), tamp their egos down, and read the words of the soldiers. 

But ego is a slippery thing.  Ego leads us to believe that we, and we alone, matter most.  It fools us into thinking we matter, period.  We become blinded by the I.  We aren’t awake to anything but ourselves.  We are asleep.  Not everyone could awaken themselves yesterday.  Some snapped their eyes open and allowed the soldiers to speak through them.  Some kept their eyes closed, and thus kept the soldiers’ memories silenced.  We heard some names honored, but not others.  Some were remembered, but not others.  Ego was the gatekeeper of silence; ego locked the words up tight, forbidding passage.  Ego kept some of my students from truly learning about what it means to sacrifice oneself for another’s voice to live.

Discomfort is part of the process.  Roads get potholes after enough salt and plowing finally weaken the structure; life is the same way.  Sometimes we pass over the potholes with only a minor bump, even when we brace ourselves for losing our axles.  Other times, our axles snap.  Even then, it’s never the end of the world.  The car gets fixed.  The road gets patched.  We forget about it until the next winter.

Natalie Goldberg says that names matter.  Details matter.  Experiences matter.  We need to be brave enough to name things.  We need to be brave enough to see the truth of things, to honor the truth of things.  Speaking the truth of a person who has died honors that person.  It honors that person’s family.  It honors that person’s humanity.  When ego keeps us silent, it steals the truth.  It dishonors the truth.  It dishonors life.

Speak the names.  Speak the details.  Speak the truth.

Honor the dead.  Remember them.  Memorialize the names.

Namaste… MS

So it doesn’t really matter where I put my give-a-damn, ’cause the damn thing’s busted right to pieces.  I just don’t have much patience for b.s. right now.  I have no patience for attitude.   I have no desire to slow down for people who don’t get what my train’s about and where my train in going.

Maybe it’s the mid-semester slump.  Maybe my priorities are just falling into line more clearly.  Maybe it’s both. 

But I can’t stay in this mindframe for long.  Anyone have some Superglue for my give-a-damn?

 Namaste…MS

So I’m really wanting to know if I got the tenure-track position or not.  I haven’t worried, or overly concerned, myself about it, but the more people ask me, the more I wonder.  And get a bit anxious.  And second-guess some answers I gave in the interview.  And wonder what I could have done differently.  You know, all of that “This is really important to me and I really want this badly” doubt creeping in.

One of my colleagues told me yesterday that he really enjoyed my teaching demo.  He told me I was relaxed and confident, that I was a “natural at teaching”.  Wow.  After the kind of frazzled day I had, after wondering what I’m not doing right in my Comp 2 classes, hearing his words really helped put things into more perspective.  Another colleague told me she believed in me and that she’s one of my greatest fans.  It’s like my grandmother knew I needed to hear those things and sent some angels down to do a bit of work on her behalf.

Here’s hoping the news comes down relatively soon about the job.  At this point, I’m hoping for the tenure-track result, naturally, but regardless of result, just knowing the outcome will be the big relief.

Namaste… MS

So I know that many of you will instantly say, “But it’s not real!”  To which I will reply, “Duh.”  Of course it’s not real — the situations, the premises, etc., are all there as constructs.  Of course it’s scripted.  It’s edited.  Yes, yes, yes.  They’re all arguments I used to make before I became hooked.

Right now, I’m watching _American Idol_.  After that, I’ll be watching _Big Brother 9_.  On Thursday, I’ll be watching _Big Brother 9_ again, as well as _Survivor_.    Oh, yeah.  Tomorrow night I’ll be watching _Project Runway_.  Before long, _Top Chef_ and _Dancing With the Stars_ will be on the reality-TV menu.

All those empty TV calories, and I won’t gain a single ounce of dumb.  I have yet to add dumb to my brain.  The way I look at it, I think about so many serious and deep things at work that it’s a pleasure to watch some reality TV at night.  It’s my escape.  It’s the same principle of being on-task and very healthy foodwise all week long and then allowing some “junk” food on the weekends.  No permanent harm done, and the likelihood of going off the food wagon during the week is severely lessened.  It all balances out, and I’m a much healthier person as a result.

Here’s to my health!

Namaste… MS

So I’m pathetic.  Totally pathetic.  It is Day One of Spring Break and here I’ve sat, online and on the computer most of the day.  I’ve even checked my work email three times.  How sad is that?  That’s not sad; that’s pathetic.

What’s a boy to do, other than force himself to disconnect?  To go through withdrawals?  To just keep the laptop closed and walk away from the darn thing?  Yeah, right!

But seriously.  I do need to disconnected.  It’s for my own good!

Namaste… MS