The Cerebral Mum

I mentioned in my first history tutorial notes over in my egregiously behind study blog that I didn’t find the small group discussions very productive, but when I finally went again last week (I’ve missed tutorials due tothe ovarian cyst), I was expecting something a little better than what I got. Yes, we were put into small groups again and, not knowing anyone, I just joined those I was closest to.

We were given questions to discuss. Did anyone talk about them? Not at all. Even when the tutor sat with us they didn’t stay on topic. It was so bloody annoying that I eventually got up and moved to another group. (Way to make friends, eh? Chalk me down as another obnoxious mature-age student.) The second group were not talking about history either, but at least they were discussing another university subject and not football.

For philosophy I have only missed one class and that tutorial is fairly quiet as well. I have to give them credit though, because Plato is pretty difficult to engage with as well as being somewhat daunting. I’m think that when we start on Nietzsche next week, they’ll have more than can relate to and more will be said.

But this brings me back to my sexism. I’ve actually spent some time talking to my female tutors and I like and respect them both but while we (okay, it’s only me) are in sexual stereotyping mode I’ll just say that there is one teaching style I like which seems to be fairly rare amongst the women: The Martinet.

I like The Martinet. He gets down to business. He knows that you’re in class for one reason and one reason only. He expects you to talk, and he expects you to do your reading. And so you do. Because if you don’t, you look like a dick.(If you can’t imagine the kind of person I mean, think of The Nazi on Grey’s Anatomy and remember me kindly because I have provided a female, though fictitious, example.)

Captain Slusher, an old teacher of mine that I’ve mentioned before, was a perfect Martinet. He came into class for the very first time, towering over us all, and gave us a lecture about his expectations; about what he would and would not tolerate, about what constituted an excuse and what did not. It’s pretty hard (for me, anyway) to dislike someone who is up front about where he stands and then applies those principles; who is hard but fair. And it has the added benefit that when you’ve done well, you know that you have done really well.

Perhaps that is a weakness on my part - wanting an external impetus - but I like to be pushed. If I can just breeze through a subject with high marks, I guess that’s okay, but I’d prefer to be stretched. I like having to earn every last percentage point.

Incidentally, I have only received one mark so far, for a 500 word answer to a weekly question for philosophy. I only wrote 350 words and I thought my answer was fairly shite. I got 95%. Don’t get me wrong: I was really chuffed (and surprised) by that and I probably did a happy dance for two days straight. It was the first mark I’d received in over a decade. Who wouldn’t be chuffed?

But I’m looking forward to getting marked harder and getting whipped into shape as expectations rise over the course of my degree. (Don’t throw that in my face if I don’t get an HD for my first history essay next week. Just let me cry.)

And I’ve been wondering… What will I be like when I start teaching? Will I be a soft touch? Or will I try out The Martinet style and have it come across as though I have some repressed, chip-on-my-shoulder issue with my womanhood. (Another pretty awful stereotype.) Because, you see, the beauty of Captain Slusher was not only that he was uncompromising in his standards; he was also bloody funny.

And I’m not. Funny, I mean. I’m too serious, too intense, too everything. And my sense of humour is obscure and personal. Whatever game face I decide to go with, it’s going to need a lot of work.

[Btw, there was an interesting review of the movie Smart People which discusses the stereotypes of academics. I might be biased, because I have a blog crush on Jake Pure Pedantry but it’s worth a read. It might even be worth watching the movie. ]

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While I was getting ready for university this morning, I had CNN on in the background. Blah blah… Pope mobile… Blah blah… Sexual abuse scandal… Blah blah… White House… And then Bush says…

“…end the Dictatorship of Relativism…”

WTF?

So off I go to school, with my course readings for today’s philosophy tutorial, wondering if Bush has any idea what that phrase means, and if he thinks we need a War Against Relativism to complement the War Against Drugs and the War Against Terrorism. (Although, if the enemy of his enemy is his friend, he could join forces with the terrorists for this new fight.)

On the train, I start my reading… about Plato’s Theory of Forms and the philosophical life. After weeks of struggling to engage with a text full of unacceptable premises and metaphysics, there was some meat there of more interest than “rational” arguments for the immortality of the soul. And my head was full of ideas (I think I sketched out 3 different books in my head during my reading) so…

I miss my train station and go all the way into the city.

Okay. No drama there. The tram I switch to goes through the city anyway and I’d left early. I board and begin reading the supplementary text. It is painful. Reductive, meaningless quibbles about words, pretending to elucidate while saying nothing. Yawn. So I throw that back in my bag and pull out Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Ahh… Nihilism: That other alternative to the absolutism of Plato and of the 2 millenia that followed…

I go 20 minutes further down the tracks than I am supposed to.

I get to my history lecture on time. Why do we always pay attention to the Hollywood Ten rather than the 1000s of civil servants who got the same treatment under McCarthyism? I reckon there is a thesis in the little, unsexy people. Oh, and Gary Cooper was a dickwad.

Anyway.

I move on to my philosophy tutorial, to discuss The Forms - those pure essences which cannot be perceived with human senses and which the objects and qualities we experience in our “reality” are but shadows of. We talk about Beauty. If two people disagree about an object’s beauty, can both be right? According to Plato, no. Beauty exists as an absolute. If one cannot recognise it where it exists, it is a failure of the mind. Someone must be wrong. According to most of us - living, as we apparently do, under the Dictatorship of Relativism - beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

(Curiously enough, that proverb is a bastardisation of Plato’s words in The Symposium - “beholding beauty with the eye of the mind” - where he was saying anything but what we mean by it today.)

After a quick trip to the library to get some reference materials for my research paper, I get on the tram - which is late, then slow - but I manage to get off at the right stop and board my train. Which is late and then, almost home, stops altogether. Between stations.

Through the window in the dark I see the driver on the tracks, then the police. Great. After a while we move on to the next station. The police walk passed the carriages toward the driver and we hear an announcement…

“We apologise for the delay. We had.”

Er? Whatever the problem is, I guess it’s none of my business.

I make a phone call. B will come and pick me up so I disembark. Over a policewoman’s radio I hear, “…man on top of the woman…” Curiouser and curiouser. An ambulance is parked on the verge of the tracks and a police car is blocking the road. An announcement is made that the train has stopped in order to divide the carriages. (Yeah, right.)

B arrives, and I go home, still wondering about the contextless Dictatorship of Relativism. So I look for a transcript online and discover the phrase is not Bush’s, but The Rat’s. (Note: choosing to respect people’s private beliefs does not necessitate respect for the Papacy.)

Ratzinger said in 2005…

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

So, to escape my relativist, liberal freedom (which, apparently, is a perversion of the idea of redemption) should I go with Plato’s Forms, or Ratzinger’s Christ? (And don’t those possessives speak to how much I currently suffer under The Dictatorship?)

Also interesting, given today’s history lecture on the Cold War, are the passages there (and in an earlier address) about the particular “winds of doctrine”. Methinks someone is still suffering from a Red Scare.

To sum up though, I went to university then came home.

Who the hell knows where Bush was going.

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So, as I’ve now had some time to reassess what I want to do, I’ve updated my initial enrolment from History and Literature to History and Philosophy.  I’ll probably still end up doing a Literature major, but I’m only doing a part time load this year so putting off Literature for the moment won’t make my course take any longer.

And I have this year to figure out what streams are going to be the most use when i go into teaching, and what I want to actually teach.  I have no idea how that works at the moment because in my previous academic career, all I wanted to do was get my Phd and teach at the tertiary level.

I am now officially enrolled in…

• World Since 1945: War’s End to Early 70s
• Philosophy & The Meaning of Life (I hope that involves Monty Python.)
• World Since 1945: Early 70s to 90s
• Freedom & Subjectivity

I think I’m looking forward to Freedom & Subjectivity the most.  It will give me a chance to indulge my Albert Camus infatuation. (Alright, obsession.  I have his picture in my wallet.)

So I now I guess I just need to get ready for O-Week.  (That’s when I get to get drunk and watch lots of great bands, right? I better get a babysitter.)  Actually, what does an almost 35 year old wear to uni?  I used to wear all sorts of wacky things, from wedding dresses to clown costumes, to just a trench coat.  I used to stop and buy fresh flowers to thread through my hair, wearing maxi dresses that belonged to my mother.

It’s a whole new fashion challenge.  But am I at that stage now when people will look at me and say, She’s too old to be wearing that!?  Ahh, who cares.  I can be a wacky geriatric if I like.

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As I said yesterday, there were tears. And they weren’t because of the frustration of being without my glasses, although that might have contributed to my emotional state; along with the the heat, and the long journey, and Caspar’s boredom.

You see, I’ve already done 5 years of a Bachelor of Arts. Full time. After switching majors, I only had a few subjects left to get all my points and graduate before moving on to a Dip. Ed. Going to a different Uni, with a different course structure, I wasn’t expecting to get everything credited, but I was expecting to be finished pretty quickly. But this Uni has a policy. If it’s over 10 years old, it doesn’t count.

I have to start the whole bloody thing from scratch.

And what was my major? History! Has history changed in 10 years? I don’t think so.

So there I was, frustrated already by the enrolment process which is always an administrative nightmare, and being shuffled around to different buildings and people in order to get the advanced credit sorted out, only to end up with the kind of answer I least wanted to hear.

And there I was, having to look through the course guide and sign up for first year classes I hadn’t even considered. Which I had to do myself. Online. It made me wonder why I had bothered to take a 5 hour trip to enrol. So I could use their computer labs? I have a computer.

But there was a coffee shop and after stripping Caspar off because he had poured his entire bottle of water over himself while I was in the lab, and after a latte and a babycino, the future didn’t look so bleak.

Because I love studying.

Because life doesn’t have a strict timetable.

Because the Uni is situated on a direct tram route from where I most want to live when I get my house sorted out.

Because the campus is really nice and they had a great looking child care centre.

Because I think I’ll now be a little self indulgent and do Philosophy, which my old Uni didn’t have.

So look forward to posts with big, wanky words and big, wanky ideas. And meet the almost 35 year old “Freshman”.

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Of course, I couldn’t find that one piece of paper I needed, my old transcripts so I could apply for advanced credit and skip the 2/3rds of the degree I had already done.  So I was late.

There was much swearing and agitation until I bit the bullet and called to see if me getting there 2 hours after the allotted time would be a problem.  Apparently, it wasn’t.  Yay for me. Apparently, it also wasn’t a problem that I didn’t have my transcripts: The enrolment officers could access them on their computers.  Yay for me.

The weather, of course, was Melbourne.  Biting cold wind with promises of an almost scorching day, so Cas and I left all rugged up, with just enough room in the bottom of the pram to shove all the clothes we would inevitably have to remove.

Prams on trams are not the greatest thing.  They’re even worse, when you catch them in the city and they are mostly full.  They are even worse when you’re half blind and don’t really have any idea where you are supposed to get off.  But the university was large enough for me to see in time.  All was well.

Until I got off and realised  that to get out of the tram stop in the middle of the road and across to the Uni, I had to go via an underpass, the only access to which was a very steep set of stairs.  I guess trams are not designed for prams.  Or disabled people.

Anyway, after the gargantuan effort of navigating the stairwell with my heavy load of winter coats and a bored baby, I was actually standing there at the entrance of the university.  I was almost a student again!   But the campus was large.

And I couldn’t see.

I learned a few things on Tuesday I think.  Having that “disability” was disorienting and confusing.  It made being somewhere unfamiliar very uncomfortable.  I eventually managed to find my way around, and I did ask for help when I needed it, but I noticed when I did how much I “faked” being able to follow where specifically people were pointing.  I used to do Adult Literacy tutoring.  My students got through their whole lives to that point “faking it”.

It’s not a nice feeling and I wonder what deep recesses of my psyche prevented me from just saying, “I’ve lost my glasses and can’t see very clearly.”  Because nodding as though I understood them fully was very much a lie.  And I’m not a liar.  And I hate the idea of being a liar.

There is no shame in having a minor visual impairment but the only thing I can think of that could motivate that dishonest behaviour is shame.  The shame of not being able to manage everything for yourself.  But that didn’t seem to fit.  I think it was almost an evolutionary, defensive instinct; covering up a weakness.

But it made me uncomfortable when talking to people, and by the time I actually got to processing my enrolment, my eyes were so strained that making eye contact was difficult and I was unable to pick up on the non-verbal cues I am normally sensitive to.  I felt disconnected.  I felt frustrated. And I even felt angry.

I’ll tell you more about my enrolment tomorrow - and there were tears! - but right now, I’m just thinking back to my students, and wondering how isolated they felt for so many years. And I’m wondering at the bravery it took for them to sign up for classes to learn to read.  And I’m wondering how much that early, instinctive pretending got in the way of them receiving the support they deserved as children and young adults. Not just in reading, but in life.

My experience can not in any way compare to anyone’s with a real disability, but I think on enrolment day I had an insight into how it can restrict so much more than just the obvious, mechanical things.

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So.

I just launched a new blog and now have 2 to write for.

I’m a moderator at the Aussie Bloggers Forum.

I’m about to start contributing articles to a group blog.

I’m hard at work getting a charity ready to go public.

And I just got an unexpected letter in the mail. From the Victorian Tertiary Admission Centre.

Apparently, despite the fact that I did not fill out all the requisite forms, or sit the requisite tests, or send off the requisite paperwork, or order the requisite reports, the Powers That Be have (in their great wisdom) decided that they would love to let me back into university this year to finish my Bachelor of Arts.

They aren’t sending me to the one I wanted to go to, though, so perhaps the powers of the Powers That Be are limited. Regardless, on Tuesday I’m off to enrol because of course I can be a single mum, and a moderator, and a triple blogger, and a charity administrator, and university student, at the same time as I single-handedly repair a broken down housewhich I can’t get to because I am currently a little bit blind.

No worries.

Methinks 2008 won’t have a lot of time to spare for depression!

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There is a lot going on right now. Good things. Life things. Rather than being stuck in my fog, I am now flooded by things to do. I’m inspired again, motivated again, and that’s exciting. I won’t be taking a break - I’ve found that I can’t stay away from this blog - but I will be trying not to post every day. I’m currently considering 4 posts a week, Monday to Thursday, or every second day. I haven’t decided yet but regardless of what I decide, it can only improve what I write here.

I don’t want to burn out. I have a terrible habit of burning out and, although I used to get so much done before my candlewicks met in the ashen middle, with Caspar now I just don’t have the luxury of recovery time and I have to find new ways to be productive. That sounds so tedious, “productive”, yet that part is exciting as well. The idea of focussing my energies on the things that matter to me (including this blog), of giving them the quality and consistency of attention they deserve instead of flailing around helplessly torn between the things I have to do and the things I need to do, just seems… hopeful.

I’ve always felt as though I had a purpose but all to often that feeling has been theoretical, overwhelmed by the demands of daily things if not completely incompatible with them. At times it has been present as a burden; something I used to beat myself down with, a weapon made of imagined failure which cut me and starved me both literally and figuratively and multiplied into an army. At the worst times, it has been hidden from me entirely.

Purpose.

I don’t think purpose is something ordained at birth: I don’t think it is something given to us with the colour of our eyes. I think it evolves in us through experience: I think it is our discovery of what is important to us, the unfolding pattern of the things we care about. Whatever those things may be - and they could be anything from cross-stitch to a cure for cancer - when we are struggling to give them space in our lives, we don’t feel important. We lose our sense of connection to the world. Everything becomes grey.

Right now, in my hemisphere, life is not grey. The sun is coming out from behind the clouds and it is Spring. Life is happening again. I was asked to join an online writer’s group and am now able to post draughts from my novel, get feedback and interact again with other writers facing the same issues, so I am no longer going to put off until tomorrow what I can do today. I’ve been asked to help create a new charity, which will entail a lot of work but which will be very worthwhile. I have a stellar idea for another blog, one which will create a resource rather than a record of my personal thoughts, and I want to start on the planning for it. And I also need to put some energy into my desire to go back to university next year, fill out more forms, make phone calls, make sure I’m not just another file on the course co-ordinator’s desk.

I have a lot of purpose. And none of it is theoretical.

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