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I’ll say this right off the bat: it’s not nearly the same thing, but four years of boarding high school isn’t bad training for working at a prison.
I don’t particularly want to blog about work in any way that might jeopardize my job, but I’ll say a bit about the sensory experience of working at the pen.
Before that, however, I want to tell you something a student told me last night. We had five minutes left in the period, so I asked my students about what life at the pen was like. They told me what their cells were like, how they might spend a day. As the gate call sounded, they got up and left. One student lingered and said, “It’s better being ignorant.” I asked what he meant. “You really don’t want to know,” he said. “I’ll write it all down and you can read it, but you really don’t want to know.”
I’ve been pondering that. Thanks to my abundant curiosity, and excluding lurid details of others’ sexual lives and escapades, there’s rarely anything I don’t want to know. I find it hard to believe anything here, and I wonder if that’s true for my students as well.
However, I imagine there are things some of you might want to know — not about their lives, because I wouldn’t divulge that — but about my working environment, so here are a few details.
After parking my car, I walk up to the main complex, lock my keys and wallet in a lockbox, and continue through a maze of hallways and into the education wing. In total I go through ten doors, none of which I have the key to. Not all of them are locked: some are normal doors, and others are guarded and I have to show ID to get through. Sometimes I have to go through a metal detector, and my bag — which has to be of a cloth material — is always scanned. I’ve already been fingerprinted and background-checked in order to work here, so I guess Big Brother is getting to know me pretty well.
Everything is beige: the walls, the ceiling, the painted iron doors, the newly waxed floor in the education wing. I imagine but do not know this to be done with purpose: white would be jarring, might even drive you crazy with its starkness; black, I suppose, could connote dark thoughts and ideas; but beige lulls you into a state of somnolence, of mindlessness. I really don’t recommend it for educational settings. I think I’d prefer a nice green — neither hospital green or Forest-Service green, but maybe a thoughtful deep avacado color.
My students wear khaki pants and white t-shirts; I wear business attire, including my nemesis, closed-toed shoes; all of us wear badges on the left side of the front of our shirts.
Truthfully, the prison doesn’t smell a particular way. However, I was up once when they were cleaning and I could smell bleach, and now I always think I smell it, even when I don’t. I also sometimes think I can smell the beige walls, which is a muddy mix of concrete and paint, and somehow the smells seem to offset in my mind: bleach vs. paint and concrete. Maybe that’s why I smell nothing, because amidst the hallways of brick and beige, there isn’t a lot of anything.
The floor security guard is there before I arrive and after I leave. She seems to jangle when she walks, but I don’t know if she actually does or if I just imagine that with all the keys she has, she must. She’s a very nice woman who could no doubt beat the shit out of me with her earlobe. I bet her earlobe was always picked first for team sports in grade school.
Class lasts between two and two-and-a-half hours, depending on when the gates open and close. It’s a long time, and last night I found myself thirsty, but I’m pretty sure I’ll need to blink first in a staring contest with Death before I’ll drink from the lonely fountain outside the students’ bathroom.
The air temperature was warm last night, and I was tempted to remove my blazer since I was wearing a pretty conservative blouse under it, but trust me — there is not enough antiperspirant in the world for this job.
Our classroom is a fairly long room with about 15 desks and 10 computer terminals. It is divided lengthwise by an iron mesh see-through wall that locks us out of the library, if you can call it that, seeing as how it only holds about a hundred books, most of which appear to have been written mid-20th century. It’s a library that would make a librarian sob over its orphaned books and empty shelves; as a writing teacher, I’m not quite that hardcore and I merely feel revulsion.
The teacher’s desk is one of those heavy metal kinds. I think it’s olive in color, and I’d like to find and hang out the window by his toenails the guy who made this ubiquitous institutional style. Then I’d like to make him be solely responsible for moving the behemoths every time a department relocates or is remodeled.
My students’ desks are individual small tables, and we all have comfortable swivel chairs on rollers. It’s very obvious where budget allowances have been made, and I’m thankful for good chairs, even though I spend a lot of the time on my feet.
So, that’s a little what my job looks and feels like. If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Clever teenager takes on the establishment and (usually) wins? The media uses its platform to mock itself? A family of doctors is dysfunctional? And really, what is wrong with cowboys in spaceships? Well, the problem with those ideas is that they were the premises of shows I liked, and they all got canceled, usually within one season but inevitably right around the time I start liking them (Veronica Mars, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Out of Practice, Firefly). Obviously this is because they have intelligent writing, and the rest of America is much more pedestrian in its taste –
[...See, I wrote that ironically, but then couldn't bring myself to delete it, which means that I believe it to be true, at least to a significant degree. ]
Anyway, shows I like get canceled, and there’s nothing like getting 18 episodes into Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on Hulu before bothering to look it up on IMDB, only to find that, yeah, I’ve got four more episodes and that’s it. The end. Kaput.
I’m sure you could lump any five shows together and find commonalities, and other bloggers who are more in touch with current culture could weigh in with more credibility, but I find a couple of these shows — Veronica Mars and Studio 60, at minimum — to be the types of shows that deal with current cultural issues in a way that is more relevant than any print or television entertainment news. Veronica Mars hit on an uncountable number of issues, not limited to teen sexuality and virginity, racism and being Arab in America, class warfare between the haves and the have-nots, underage drinking, binge drinking, Christianity, and much more; Studio 60 took those same issues and gave them a primetime adult venue. Moreover, Studio 60 attempted to put a right-wing Christian in a starring role, a fabulous setup for culture war plotlines between her and her left-wing co-stars.
Both critically acclaimed shows? Canceled.
Unless you’ve been backpacking the Appalachian Trail for the past 12 months (euphemistically or not), you’ve noticed that America has entered another culture war — or perhaps our ongoing war has deepened; one that is flamed by intolerance and bigotry. Shows that attempt to confront the crazy — which is on both sides, albeit moreso on the right these days — don’t succeed because they’re up against mindless blather and reality television that showcases humanity at its worst. We are a tabloid civilization and only a few people are willing to think about the issues dividing us.
Consider the following NBC breakdown of Studio 60′s viewers (bolding is mine):
“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” is averaging a 4.0 rating, 9 share in adults 18-49 and 9.8 million viewers overall (through November 6) and has increased its rating week-to-week in 18-49 with each of its last two telecasts. “Studio 60″ has consistently delivered some of the highest audience concentrations among all primetime network series in such key upscale categories as adults 18-49 living in homes with $75,000-plus and $100,000-plus incomes and in homes where the head of household has four or more years of college.
I am not making the point that people who with more education are “smarter” than people with less education, but I have found that people with more education tend to be more willing to confront issues like racism and classism to find out why the exist: what feeds them, what drives them, and treat the problem, as opposed to people who would rather either ignore the issues altogether and pretend they don’t exist, or treat the symptoms instead of the underlying condition. So when I see that Studio 60 had a relatively educated audience, I wonder what it would take to get less educated people to consider the culturally divisive issues of our day. And somehow, I don’t think the answer is reality television, whose producers prefer the lurid to the thoughtful and the pithy 20-second tearful endings to any investigation or real discussion.
*
I suppose you could dismiss this as the rant of an overeducated English major who’s bitter that her shows get canceled, but I hope you won’t. We’re seeing more and more evidence that America’s divide is growing, and although I am loathe to give credibility to feelings (emotions can be stupidly misleading), I can’t help but feel that this build-up isn’t going to be solved by presidential speeches; if at all, it’s going to be deflated with water-cooler conversations. A catalyst for this could be intelligent television, if only we could have some.
Some days, I feel like I’m just an angry fifth-grader looking for a fight. It’s a stage I never had, looking for schoolyard fights, but now I’d sure love to give it a try. I blame my brother, the only person capable of provoking me with the merest twitch of an eyebrow. What I wouldn’t give to . . .
Ahem.
Never mind.
Today, however, I find myself restless and angry, restless because I have all this pent up argumentation and no one to share it with (tangent: while intelligent and an excellent, thoughtful person in general, the husband avoids all types of argument, so I usually have no one on which to vent my spleen), and angry because of the utter inability of so many people in this world to have a rational discussion. Here’s what I envision a rational discussion looking like:
Person 1: I believe X
Person 2: Why?
Person 1: Because A, B, C . . .
Person 2: I can see A and C, but I disagree with B. Here’s why . . .
Person 1: Ah, but you are misconstruing B because . . .
In other words, YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING ENGAGE EACH OTHER. None of this avoidance shit, this stuff where you deflect and purposefully misconstrue and pretend to take offense, hoping that the other person will back off. None of the condescending “You missed the point . . .” or the watery attempt at common ground — and by the way it’s a hell of a lot easier to find common ground after you’ve figured out how far apart you are from each other, IMHO.
What happened to debate? Where has the ability to engage and rationalize gone? Are we so sensitive that a direct question is too uncomfortable? I’ll admit my skills are rusty — I come off far too strongly, even when I restrain myself — but with a little practice, I could get back into shape. I believe we can debate, and argue, and come to understand each other better, if we’d at least give it a fucking try.
Am celebrating final week in graduate school by alternating head from side to side in pointless attempt to level off sinus pressure. World’s Swiftest Cold set in yesterday evening; by midnight couldn’t sleep for aches, sniffles, pressure, etc. so took World’s Largest Dose of NyQuil and was out like a lightbulb an hour later. Mouth is all cottony now, though, and brain equally fuzzy. Hmm.
In other news, tomorrow is MY LAST TUESDAY IN PULLCOW and Thursday is MY LAST THURSDAY IN PULLCOW and holy tomatoes, people: THREE MORE DAYS AND I’M DONE WITH GRADUATE SCHOOL. Sure, I have to write a paper and grade a set of papers and enter grades after that, but no more commuting.
A rough estimate of the miles I’ve put on the poor Prius is 23,000 in the last two years, just commuting; a rough estimate of the gas money on said commute is around $2,000. Still, I made just enough money to pay the mortgage and my travel expenses every month. So while I wasn’t saving, I wasn’t taking us into debt, either.
And now…now I’ve got to find a job.
Am slogging through Donna Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, as well as her companion species and monsters pieces. Due to an incident with the library, I don’t have a book. Fortunately, Google books, the Interweb, and a Xerox machine will help me read through her stuff anyway. (And by “read” I mean skim, and wish I understood what the hell she’s talking about.)
Anyway, this entry is just to say: I am reading Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto in a coffee shop in a college town whilst wearing a skirt, Tevas, and with braids in my (non-bangs-ed) hair. I have never felt so much like a graduate student. How fitting that the feeling should arrive when I’m only one for eight more days.
Tomorrow I defend for my M.A., so today I’ve been pondering the thought of me and three people way smarter than me in a room for two hours. There is not enough antiperspirant in the world….
My comment got published on a blog post on ESPN! It’s not the most brilliant analysis but I think I got points for being succinct.
TWENTY-NINE DAYS, BITCHES. Less than a month until the end of this whole graduate school thing. Most intelligent people in my cohort took one look at the economy and doubled the amount of PhD applications they sent BUT NOT ME; no, I imagined four years of life worse than these past two and decided that I’d prefer being unemployed and living in a cardboard box to further studenting.
The following are my plans for getting some type of job thingy:
- Pester the writing coordinator at University A until she gives me a job
- Actually send the job application to College B
- Buy printer cartridges in order to print application to send to College B
- Think about applying for jobs at College C, but decide against it for fear that my students would be smarter than me
- Apply for anything that comes up in the local newspaper employment ads; being a barista wouldn’t be so bad…or maybe I could learn about wine and become a tasting room consultant? that’d put my M.A. to use…
- Try to drum up some freelance writing/editing/proofreading business to finance my gardening this summer
It’ll be marvelous, not having a job.
In the meantime, the whole twenty-nine days thing has become a problem because I just no longer care. I want to be done. Have rearranged most of my classes so the class does a lot of group/teamwork and I do very little lecturing or grading. And only four more books to read and one term paper to write, which is the crux of my current angst: could throw the book I’m currently reading across the room: it’s written by a theoretical physicist who, in spite of that major professional shortcoming, manages to write clearly if condescendingly about “discourse” and “textuality” and other stuff I just don’t give a shit about.
I want to be done! I want to build a fence! to read books I actually enjoy! to see my friends in London! to go to Greece and eat feta and chickpea stew and explore churches and ruins, and neverever come back!
So I was in my chair’s office today talking about what a pain scheduling my oral exam has been. (This oral exam is coming up in about two weeks. It’s the written exam that I’ve passed.) As I was getting ready to leave, she said, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
That I’m going to fail the program?
That I shouldn’t bother showing up for the oral?
That I only passed the written by the hair of my chinny chin chin?
No. Although I don’t think that I’m the only person in the world who obsesses over my perceived mediocrity. No, apparently she was in a bar that Saturday night in San Francisco and was talking to her friend and colleague who works at [redacted, but very cool university]. This friend was raving about a presentation he’d gone to that was really good
…and apparently it was mine. Not my panel’s; mine.
Now granted, I’m sure they were drinking copious amounts of whisky at this point. But I’m pretty happy about the fact that, even while hammered, someone remembered my presentation.
I passed my written exam. All that angst about revising it? Totally not worth it.
I feel the need to tell more about meeting Anne Waldman in the women’s bathroom. Because it’s not quite as neat as I might’ve let on in the first reference. And, okay, fine, because I also hope that Anne Waldman Googles herself and finds out the truth of what happened in the bathroom. ALL WAS NOT AS IT SEEMED.
So I enter the bathroom on a coffee-induced, bladder-relief mission, and on my way to the only empty stall, I see Anne Waldman washing her hands. I try, rather unsuccessfully, not to stare, but it’s Anne Waldman! I get to my stall and barely notice that the person before me didn’t flush. The toilet’s contents weren’t gross so I didn’t think too much of it; instead, I was mostly trying not to think about how Anne Waldman might be listening to me pee. (I have a bit of a phobia about public restrooms, one that I’ve [mercifully] kept mostly to myself lo these many years. You’re welcome.) I finished quickly and left, and the toilet (an automatic kind) flushed as I unlocked the stall door. Two more women were in line, and one went into my stall.
I began washing my hands NEXT TO ANNE WALDMAN, who was now applying makeup for her presentation that I was planning to attend. Planning to attend, that is, until the woman who’d taken my stall comes back out, looks directly at me, and says to the other woman in line, “That toilet is about to overflow.”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I had no idea what to say or do. “It wasn’t…. I didn’t…” I sputtered, but the damage was done: Anne Waldman glanced at me and it was clear that she thought I was nothing more or less than a woman who’d clogged a public toilet.
Oh Anne, if you ever Google yourself and end up here, please know that all I did was pee. I swear. And then I was too embarrassed to show my face at your presentation, and instead went to a different one where the first presenter was crucified and the other went point-by-point through his syllabus and I’ve regretted it ever since. BECAUSE YOU’RE ANNE WALDMAN AND YOU HAVE THIS EFFECT ON PEOPLE.
or, San Francisco Convention redux
After nearly missing my plane on Wednesday morning, I finally made it to San Francisco, found my flatmates, and got settled onto my Hide-A-Bed in our little apartment. I sat in on several panels, including:
- An excellent panel on parody and its usefulness in the composition classroom
- Another excellent panel on satire, including the teaching of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, in the composition classroom
- A horrible, horrible panel where two of the three presenters didn’t show up. One canceled (and didn’t send her paper — shameful!), and one canceled and sent her husband in her stead to (1) read her paper, and then (2) discuss his foray into contract teaching (this second part involved him going point by point through his, yeah, TWENTY PAGE SYLLABUS, and an audience member finally spoke up after fifteen minutes when the presenter had only reached page four and asked him to move along to the writing part; awkward!); and finally, the only original presenter, who got taken to task, probably because everyone was frustrated with Mr. Long-Winded Syllabus Reader, and probably because the final presenter was unable to articulate why we should teach digital essays. The redeeming point would be that the third guy had his students doing some pretty cool stuff that I hope to use someday. If I, like, get a job and stuff.
And of course, my own panel, which went really well. We had three other excellent presenters and our chair was the aforementioned Cynthia Selfe, which combined to produce a pretty good turnout for a Saturday afternoon presentation of around thirty people. I had a couple people come up to me afterward and ask for my e-mail address so they could get more assignments and suggestions on teaching multimodal composition. It was pretty cool. And Cindy Selfe gave me a hug and told me I’d done an excellent job. Cindy Selfe! hugged me!
(Okay, I promise I’m almost done name-dropping now. One more.)
I saw Anne Waldman in a hotel bathroom (Anne Waldman!). Yes, dear readers, I had the privilege of washing my hands next to Anne Waldman. My life is complete now.
Last night and today I get to hang out with some pretty cool people, and then tomorrow it’s home to see The Husband. Whom, I admit, I kind of miss.
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