Working with my great students lately has been enjoyable. I spent so many years slaving away at the charter school in Hades, where the students were amazing, but so many of them were dysfunctional in truly disabling ways, and came from incredible chaos at home. I'm sure my students at Idealist Academy have their own issues and challenges to deal with, since they are, after all, human. But they actually do assigned work, turn it in, ask questions, take feedback, participate in class, and show up. And all of this, during this blasted pandemic, so I bet it's even more fun to work with them in person.
It's challenging for me to be meeting them all remotely, to be a new teacher at a new school, and to be in this fucking chair all day. But, it's also, so far, knock on wood, working out surprisingly well.
Words words words words.
Tedison
I am assiduously avoiding the Presidential debate, as I can't even bear to see a photograph of our tax cheat in chief. The thought of watching him, hearing his voice, whatever, is stomach churning. I'd rather watch a botfly larva being removed from someone's rectus femoris muscle.
I keep thinking of the archetype of the exasperated storyteller, compelled to tell a story that has already been repetitive and continues on, insisting on continuing on, in spite of the storyteller's exasperation. I stumbled on this quotation in my Facebook memories today:
"Even though we are born, live and die in the midst of great realization, within our minds we create our own pictures of the world and our value systems, and we pursue only the values that we have created within our own systems. We may cultivate, for example, our reputation as a sincere and virtuous practitioner, instead of simply practicing sincerely and nurturing our virtues. In our minds we are able to create a very complicated fantasy of who we are, a fantasy in which we usually consider ourselves heroes or heroines." ---Shohaku Okumura, excerpt from Realizing Genjokoan, via Doan Brian Roessler
The dynamic of the exasperating story (although in this case, the storyteller did not ever seem to lag or be exasperated in the least) reminds me of my oldest brother, who started a passionately outraged narrative about what an asshole our father was, back around 1990, and, if you catch him now, especially post serious stroke that he had a few years ago, you are liable to hear exactly the same narrative. Since our father's death, four months ago, the narrative has shifted slightly. Now you might hear either a). what an asshole our father was, or b). how guilty my brother feels about how much he hated our father for so long. Wild and exasperating that it took 30 years, and the new dimensions of the story are even worse than the old. But this is the way of the exasperating story. Yet this example is only of a story that is exasperating for *everyone else*, not the storyteller themselves.
I think Samuel Beckett, among some other writers, knew the reality of the exasperated storyteller exasperated by the story of the storyteller. That's one of the suspect things about a lot of Faulkner's more recursive, multi-narrator works, such as Absalom! Absalom!—the storytellers always seem to have a huge amount of energy and they tumble forward through their stories with fiery passion. Maybe I glossed over certain passages where the storytellers are just irritated by telling the same old story yet again.
The dynamic goes to a great many myths of storytelling, or truths. The main myth on my mind these days is that we heal by telling the story. I'm sure this is situationally true, or one of those "partial truths." It seems like, superficially at least, talk therapy is based on this myth, although I guess the extra added attraction in that setting is having a "psychopomp" guide one through the story, at least. I do wonder sometimes what some therapists must feel, when they are trapped with an exasperated storyteller, telling an exasperating story for the 1000th time. My own counselor, bless his heart, used to just say, "yeah, I want you to talk about something else today. You're not making any progress on this other shit. I've already provided some tools for you, and you're not using them." Haha. Haha. Haha. etc.
Anyway, here old Percy is, 67 days after moving to a new city, 54 days since starting a new job.
Here's to whatever is valuable still, in the old exasperating story.
A couple of weirdo dreams last night. The first was that I had somehow lost my ATM card for my checking account, and just kept pulling cards out of my wallet, hoping to find it in there, but knowing it really was not there. I was at some kind of conference or college/university event. I was getting increasingly panicked by not being able to find it, and for some reason thought I had to cancel all of my credit cards at once, and I had like 30 of them in my wallet. It was extremely unpleasant. The feeling tone, aside from panic, was self-castigation. I kept calling myself a loser, a fuck up, a fucking clown, an idiot, etc. I was tearing myself to bits. Why do you always do things like this? Why can't you just keep your shit together? What is your fucking actual damage? On and on.
I woke up and felt as shitty as you might imagine, dear reader. Tossed and turned, at 5:30 in the a.m., also listing and enumerating all the real ways I am fucking up. You haven't done your laundry in three weeks, you have to go get supplies for your apartment, you are being incredibly irresponsible about grocery shopping, you have to get to the DMV and finally take care of all your CA stuff, you are losing control over each and every aspect of your life. Then I got hung up on a problem I had included in my environmental science class practice problems that I hadn't thought through carefully, and that the students did not have enough information to do. They had started emailing me the night before the assignment was due, complaining that it was an impossible problem. So I switched from excoriating myself over practical incompetency to what a shitty, stupid, fucked up, sloppy, dumbass teacher I am.
Anyway, after about 45 minutes of this, I fell asleep again.
And this time had another odd dream where I was traveling, as I had done almost the entire time from December 11 until the end of July this past year. I was in a national park or other official area of some kind that I was familiar with. I reached a crossroads, and decided to follow signs for a new road that led to some kind of scenic overlook. When I got to this new locale, I was absolutely astonished by the incredible view. It was a view of Utah style red rock buttes and canyons, but with the most bright azure blue water in pools and waterfalls. Just amazing, and slightly otherworldly. I felt so overwhelmed by the view that I was actually afraid I might drive off a cliff. I parked, and I saw a young guy sitting on the grass. A woman came up to him and said something funny and they sort of kissed. His response seemed profoundly clever to me and I wanted to write it down but didn't have any paper.
Then a passenger train headed down into the canyon, and I asked the woman if she had ever taken that train, and she said, yeah, but it's brutal, you really need a ton of sunscreen, or you'll get severely burned. It was right around then that I woke up, at 8:30 a.m. this time.
I have no idea really what either of these dream-mares are about, except that the feeling tone in both was one of serious anxiety, chaos, surreality, confusion, my own incompetence, and/or a bewildering sense of not quite being on planet Earth.
I had been taking melatonin for a few weeks and stopped a couple of nights ago, and I often have vivid dreams when I discontinue melatonin. I take only 10 mg, but it really does build up or something and I periodically have to go off of it, or it messes with me. However, there's more to these dreams of chaos. I think adjusting to the new job, grieving, being alone in a new city, my 59th birthday last week, and a lot of exhaustion is all really catching up with me. Heterogeneously unwell and well, at once. A mixture.
Getting back into teaching the details of chemistry to my 12th grade students has been a trip. I had completely forgotten how weird the subject of chemistry is, since it has this long, deeply bewildering, bizarre historical arc, but is taught in "reverse time," pretty much, with quantum physics, electron orbitals, electron quantum numbers, the Aufbau rule, Hund's rule, the Pauli Exclusion Principle and all of that taught up front. Students want to know simple things, like, why ammonium nitrate is made of three different gases but is itself a weird solid at room temperature? Why do some things explode when you throw them in water? Why is matter the way it is, basically? And chemistry starts answering by telling this incredibly outlandish story about tiny particles at unimaginably small spatial scales, and incomprehensibly large quantities like moles, and even weirder, electrons, which have almost no mass but have a charge equal to but opposite from protons, etc.
My sister once caused a ton of dinner table scoffing, when she was about 15 years old, and ventured that she "didn't believe in atoms," because she couldn't see them. "Even scientists don't agree on what they are." My oldest brother, in particular, found it a hilarious attitude. But really, aren't we just sort of assenting to a bunch of inherited 20th Century research by a handful of brilliant physicists whose mathematics, methods, and conclusions are way, way over the head even of most chemistry teachers? I mean, at my Ivory Tower undergrad, in my junior year lab, the teacher helped us derive Schrödinger's wave equation, but I'll be damned if I truly understood it at that time, let alone now, where I take one look at its simplified form and just shrug.
Trust me, I'm a physicist
The sad fact is we landed in a zone where we basically have to tell our students to accept a ton of assertions on faith, the exact opposite of what their science minds ought to be doing. It's ultimately okay, probably. But it creates a weird tension for the more inquisitive students, who really want to know why. Why are orbitals shaped the way they are? Why do they only contain a maximum of a certain number of electrons? Why is matter lazy and electrons fill the lowest energy level shells first? What does it mean that electrons are both waves and particles? And what the hell does any of this have to do with chemistry?
Those are all great questions.
Science topics taught in K-12 are pretty much just delivering a body of pre-existing knowledge. This makes it very difficult for students to *do science*, as an activity, because most of the students very quickly perceive the sad truth: *it has already BEEN DONE*. Most of the labs are just drearily working through dumbed down versions of experiments that have already been done a billion times. To teach the great, exhilarating experience of *actually discovering something* is quite challenging. If one wanted to teach "discovery science," it would take a very, very long time. And for the students who are more oriented toward applied science, and who don't mind accepting the gigantic mountain of existing knowledge at face value, discovery based activities are tedious in the extreme. In fact, some try their best to engage, but then, when they learn at the end that, of course, whatever they "discovered" has been known since 1789 or whatever, they get pissed. Can you blame them?
I've been leaning toward cultivating experiences where, at least, each individual student has their own personal "aha!" moments, even if the original "aha!" was hundreds of years ago. I've also been trying to incorporate as much of the surprising or weird as possible, which many students find entertaining. Here's a video of what happens when you throw a kg of sodium into water, for example:
"Hello guys today we will do experiment Sodium metal VS Water. This is one of the amazing experiments that are really amazing. Hope you enjoyed the video, please do not try to imitate. Guys this is a very very dangerous experiment so please so not try to perform the same."
I think the best we can do when we're working with a pre-existing mountain of knowledge is try to create individual interest, and provide opportunities for students to discover at least their own answers to their own questions.
The environmental science class, on the other hand, is a lot more research based, largely because there are so many questions that remain open, especially now that we are also looking at climate change impacts.
It's Saturday, I have a three day weekend thanks to Yom Kippur, and though old Percy is not Jewish, he has a ton to atone for.
The beauty of being busy is forgetting.
The truth is, sometimes our state of being is heterogeneous. None of the separate pieces mix very well. It might be possible to group some pieces into reasonable categories. But the categories can sometimes be completely exclusive, contradictory, yet co-existing. This is good old Percy's emotional and spiritual reality at this time. A mixture of nonsensical and totally separate items. Not a compound.
My friend and teaching colleague Christopher wrote the above after a brief, joking exchange in response to this cartoon:
Since yesterday was in fact dear old Percy's birthday. Rapidly tumbling toward 60, although not quite there.
Percy's Guardian Reaper definitely approved of this mode of birthday celebration, from a sort of donut art store in Santa Monica. "Welcome to donut heaven," their website says. The one on the lower left is a "lavender star flower" donut. It was pretty good. A friend sent Ohori's Coffee (Organic Ethiopian), and the combo was perfecto. Percy thought he might get the spaghetti casa at Guido's, but he decided on green Thai curry with shrimp, Thai hot, which was perfect.
Looking back over a wide variety of blog posts this morning trying to find one in particular and I'm amazed by how stuck and pathetic I've been at many times over the past few years. Yesterday was very low, as befits the occasion of a birthday these days, and it makes sense that it would be low, it's proportional. But it wasn't mired and awful as so much of my life has been over the past while. There's a new kind of misery now that is living with misery that's not even really worth talking about. It's just the fish tank water in which the fish swims, ho hum. Who cares. Etc. There comes a time when even the storyteller is exasperated by the story.
Another friend stopped by yesterday and gifted these two books, with her open invitation to just text her and leave the intended starting place, with a time, and we could be walking/hiking buddies. I appreciate this, as it's tempting in LA to never, ever leave one's apartment, and has been especially that way lately, thanks to "unhealthy" AQI's due to the wildfires.
More than 300 people wished old Percy a happy bday on FB, but the day was otherwise super lonely. I think the Bukowski quotation is quite apt, and I think it's both:
Both/and, not either or. It sometimes feels like one can't be free without that edge of loneliness. The interesting thing to realize is that loneliness endures in the midst of many situations that lack freedom, so at least if one makes a play for freedom, the loneliness seems to be more fitting, rather than just the grinding emptiness of life itself. I do recall being partnered, and a stepfather, and feeling lonelier than I do now. Or at least a different kind of loneliness. It seems maybe there should be a taxonomy of the spectrum of loneliness? I am not going to do it, but someone should.
One of the little local dramas, the nesting Zenaida macrora, has taken on a new phase. The two squabs (the usual number in a brood) have dispersed from the nest, but are not capable of flying yet. I don't know if they hop out or if Momma Mourner kicks them out. I've only been able to find one, which was up on our balcony/walkway for a time, and is now downstairs, huddled by a doorway.
It must be a strange phase, when these squabs are big enough to be out hopping around, but can't fly yet. This seems a precarious reproductive strategy, and yet millions and millions of these birds thrive everywhere. My metaphorical mind goes where it goes, thinking about these transitions. Meanwhile, Momma Mourner has positioned herself in the tree across the way, cooing up another mate already, and ready to do it all over again. I guess this may well be part of why millions of these birds thrive. Mating while the first brood is helplessly sitting around waiting to be feral cat food is probably a good idea.
Anyway, happy birthday, Percy old man. I'm glad you keep showing up, as exasperating as it may be for that Guardian Reaper, who is probably hot to retire.
I have a Ph.D. in science, and the scientific mode of inquiry (sometimes wrongly called "the scientific method" and wrongly presented as a linear or circular "process") is very important to me. I am still trying to find out if I "naturally" think like a scientist, or if it takes a conscious re-focusing of the way my mind works in order to structure up my thinking along scientific lines. I'm recalling that my approach to the Ph.D. research was backwards in many ways, In particular, I had a study site before I had any research questions, and then I had a study organism before I really had any idea what I was trying to find out about it. These approaches made the process awkward for a couple of years, as I zoomed in from the big picture to some tangible, research based and specific questions. I think this big picture approach arises from my earlier experience as a naturalist, and a photographer, concerned a lot more with context, setting, narrative, and aesthetics.
I think this is just intuition at work. It did end up paying off, and all of my early intuition about the study site and the study species was exactly right. There's a ton more research that could easily be done in the same locale, and with the same species. I feel like the role of intuition in science gets downplayed a lot, especially these days. I've seen some quotations from Einstein and others highlighting how important intuition is in the scientific mode of inquiry. But it seems like hard core reductivist empiricism is the ruling attitude these days, and I find it kind of humorous, especially since it doesn't seem to be leading to very good science, a lot of the time. For example, the incredible pressure within the hypothesis testing framework to get "significant" results, as measured by a p value < .05, which is absurd in a great many experimental and research situations. We tell our science students not to worry if their experimental results do not "support their hypothesis" or bear out their prediction, and yet the entire financial machinery of science runs on the opposite.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, a mourning dove (Zenaida macrora) made itself known, through the cooing from which they get their name, and a mate came along in response, and then the female built out a rather desultory nest on top of the fire extinguisher box outside on the balcony at my apartment. Right by my window, basically. And now there are a couple of squabs in the nest, and she's almost always around, sometimes sitting right on top of her babies, other times hanging out on the railing outside my window, peering into my apartment.
Part witch, I found the coincidences meaningful. Part "scientist, I did a tiny bit of research on Zenaida macrora, discovering that they usually have two squabs per mating cycle, as this one does, and that they reproduce many times a year. They are so successful that somewhere between 20 million and 70 million mourning doves are hunted for sport or food annually, and it doesn't even make a dent in their numbers. From a witchy point of view, this makes grief seem to be the most common thing there is.
One of those obvious truths, for sure.
Meanwhile the season turns and is naturally, for me anyway, the season of grief. Fall has long been the time to let go. Some weird coincidence with my birthday, a tendency for things to end right around now which has been a very common pattern, and of course the darkening of the light. My resident mourning momma visits at the right time.
Honestly exhausted, waking up at 4 or 5 a.m. these days in a kind of mild panic. This morning at 4 involved rage at people who have done literally nothing wrong, and are just living their lives. Unpleasant. A cascade of weird judgmental resentment, followed by anxiety over the unfinished in every area of my life. The weirdest red tape snarl has been a constant, trying to onboard at Ginormo U and transition to being a Californian. The last set of hurdles, California-wise, involve the bloody DMV, a nightmare of pandemic dysfunction. I'm very close to tying up everything Ginormo U-wise, finally, after more than a month.
Meanwhile, trying to get comfortable with remote teaching, and working on getting a sense of exactly what the reasonable parameters are regarding pace, scope and sequence, etc. Building out two courses from scratch. I think the weirdest part of the curriculum design process is simultaneously trying to adhere to national and state standards while wanting to incorporate angles that fit the courses to the culture of the school. I need to come up with a name for the school I guess. Idealist Academy? Something.
One dynamic I've been amused by is the hardcore dedication of the staff, reflected in hard work and long hours, and meticulous attention to detail in planning and language. I have seen this many times in many Idealist Academies, and it's a wonder to behold, and it does mesh with my own perspective on the very high ideal of teaching and learning. But then, inevitably, the students arrive, and insist on being themselves, no matter the amount of energy and work the adults have put into crafting the opportunities for the students. There is inevitably a period of adjustment. I believe the process goes a lot more smoothly when there is a ton of leeway for young people to be themselves. Quite apart from the expectations of all the starry eyed adults in the arena, students end up largely setting the real agenda anyway.
I do sense, after a first week of orientation classes, that my students generally have high expectations, and that's great. I wonder where all the places are that we are going to really meet.
It feels like the adults often compose and arrange a measure by measure piece to be read down by the students, envisioning a kind of Blues and the Abstract Truth session, and then the students arrive largely in the mode of Brotzmann, Bennink, Mangelsdorff.
The trick is to negotiate meeting places.
Anyway, in the midst of all of this, I am wrestling with inner critic madness, as that voice of self hatred tends to be rather harsh these days. The latest castigation is "why are you such a goddamned open book? Why do so many people in your life know everything that is going on with you, and yet they have told you next to nothing at all? Why do you expose and overshare so much? No one gives a shit about you, your experience, your stories, your opinions, or your life. No one gives a shit so shut the fuck up. Would it kill you to have some secrets?"
It's a strange line, representing a fundamental lack of trust, currently, I suppose. I'm often perfectly comfortable being an oversharing autobiographer and documentarian. But lately I have been feeling like people hate me for it, or, at least, that they find me stupid and ridiculous and pathetic. I've also been wondering if I ought to just close out this blog. Readership is down, and was never very high to begin with. I think the post with the most page views is at like, 30 views. My inner hater is severely judging my story, my writing, my narrative, as just being stupid as fuck. Nice. Then it feels like a rebellion to write. It feels like a fuck you just to journal. It feels like a middle finger to the universe to take up any space at all, much of the time.
