the voices dying with a dying fall

Songs of the Hour: Wilco, Reigning Sound

Oi, what a week.
School started Tuesday. I have now managed to make it to each of my classes, and I can tell I have a hell of a semester in front of me. The research assistantship for the psych lab I signed up for is going to be incredibly time consuming. Fun, challenging, educational… but time consuming. So far, I haven’t had much time to do anything else.

Before us lowly assistants can start looking at real data, we have to study for and take an ethics test. This is a 5 hour process, that had to be done by this morning.  I’ve never cheated on a test in my life. I’m not sure I’ll ever really wrap my head around the irony of midnight last night, finishing the last 2 modules, where I sat flipping between browser pages looking at the information and the test alternately, filling in the little circles and passing the course.  Now, there are no instructions demanding that these hypothetical situations or history questions be answered purely from memory. But as a general rule, I try to navigate through life using fairly legitimate methods. Last night, however, it could be argued that my first, and last, experience with cheating was on an ethics test. Well, if you’re going to do it, do it right I guess.

My other classes are Shakespeare, 20th Century Literature, Terrorism, and Practical Cultural Studies.  The last requires a 20 minute presentation, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it. I need all of my classes except Terrorism in order to graduate in December, but hell if I’m giving a 20 minute presentation by myself. It took a lot of drugs and alcohol to get through the last presentation, and I had a partner. I just can’t do that again. So, that’s pending.

Aside from the aforementioned stressors, I’m having a blast. Christ, I love learning. My favorite lessons this week were how Nelson Mandela was a terrorist; and learning that Hegemony isn’t what I thought it was; it is instead the word of which I’ve always dreamed.  One of those obsessive thoughts, those concepts that lurks in the back of my mind seeking vocalization, seeking a name, has found one. I know it has a variety of meaning in different contexts, but "Ideological Hegemony" is the ticket. It’s like paradigm with power structures. mmmm. Hegemon. Like digimon or pokemon but different. Hegemony. Finally. Expect me to work it into every conversation I have for the next 3 weeks. You’ve been warned. Hegemony.

I had one of those moments in 20th Century Lit today that have run like exit signs on the highway of my English degree. In discussing differences between Modernism and post-Modernism, in how Frost and William C. Williams fit the ambiguous Modernist definition in different ways, in the elements of alienation, I had the tell-tale thought: "What a load of bullshit."
In some analysis of writers feeling "alienated from the self" as opposed to "alienated from society", my prof went on this Freudian-based tangent of dreams and identity and having not knowing oneself and ultimately, divided an individual into various sub-parts with the capacity to look at each other without recognition. Now, I’m going into clinical psych for chrissakes. You’d think I’d be patient with these sorts of metaphors and perspectives. But they get under my skin like few things can. If you don’t encourage people to break themselves down into sub-parts, into parts of a collective and say there are some aspects one can’t ever know, well, then there isn’t much to be alienated from.
I adore TS Eliot. Prufrock’s Love Song is my favorite poem. I get the idea. But it was soooo academically self-absorbed somehow. Seriously. We are given expectations of how we should live and feel, and it rarely works out as prescribed (by the Ideological Hegemony) and we experience a cognitive dissonance that makes us unfulfilled and unhappy.  There are lots of ways to describe the same emotional phenomenon. I’m not unreasonable. But 45 minutes of an in-depth discussion about the interaction of metaphorical sub-parts of a human being , well, makes me want to throw myself from the ivory tower in a giant ball of flame.  What luxury we have to spend our time this way.

Ok. All done. I need to write Joss’ teacher and try to set up a meeting with the school counselor. Some one, I won’t say who, is apparently not doing ANY of his classwork, and getting homework done is like pulling teeth. From an infant. I’m gonna bite the ADHD bullet and see what’s going on with an actual diagnosis. It’s that, or he repeats the 4th grade and graduates when he’s 20.
Wish us luck.

love.

It came to my attention during DD’s visit, that I haven’t shared one of the more interesting developments in the Bridgers’ homefront with you. Really, I can’t believe I haven’t posted it– maybe I just told everyone? Who knows. Here’s the story:

My dad eats at the same Chinese restaurant almost everyday. My father, being a sociable person, got to know the waitresses. All of whom are Chinese, only half of whom are here legally. Soon, he was doing little favors for them– taking a few of them to the market,   taking them to the mall– whatever.
After a few months, this woman "Amy" has a serious conversation with my dad. In short, her two kids are in China with her mother (remember, only allowed one kid in China). The only way for Amy to get her kids, or so she believes, is for an American to go to China and marry her mother and bring them all back. Even then, she says it’ll take 18 months for them to get here.
My dad brought this up almost a year ago, kind of a joke. He said someone offered him a free trip to China. I told him he should go. He blew me off. He brought it up again later, this time getting into more of the details, and I told him he should do it, that I’ve always wanted a Chinese step-mom. He blew me off again, and said my mom would roll over in her grave. I left it alone.
He brings it up AGAIN last week. I’ve had enough, and tell him for the love of god, go get that poor woman’s children and stop making her wait while he waffles about it. It’s been a year already, and it’ll be another year and half before anything comes of it. That’s more than 3 years for Amy, without her children; and them without their mother. I speculate about what mom would do to keep Joss and I together, and how I’m sure she’d understand this other woman’s dilemma. It’s not going to cost my dad anything, except a ring. And he gets to help these people. I don’t care, my brother won’t care, just pick a day to leave and do it already and stop chewing on it.

The next day he came home and said he was leaving January first. Now, I’m expecting him to change his mind about 5 more times between now and then. But I’m hoping Amy (from what I understand, her family is wealthy back in China) will go ahead and get the tickets and lock him into this. I know he wants to do it, but he keeps hesitating thinking of me and my brother. I think this whole issue is so complicated he’s only got a 50% chance of success anyway, so he may as well try. The immigration people aren’t joking about this stuff. It’s gonna be hard. But a 67 yr old widower looking for a Chinese wife– what, is that freakishly odd or something? Doesn’t sound nice, but it sounds plausible. I think he should do it.
and no, I’m not making this up.

Love.

Again, friendster’s a pain in the ass for posting multiple photos, so for Joss’ b-day pics  you’re gonna have to hop over to myspace. Sorry for the clicking inconvenience.