"lucky day" | friday | october 13, 2006 | 2:13 pm

EAL TIRED. Powerful tired. Mighty, mighty tired. That pretty much sums up the near catatonic state I am in right now. Now, granted part of the tiredness comes from being up way too late and drinking my night away -- last night's grad pub (otherwise known as EnGraPu or EGPG) went to my head and my liver. However, it has been a long, chock full, workaholic week, too. Hence, a much needed "Miller Time".

The last couple of weeks have been pretty good, pretty even keeled. I am not wholly happy (yet), but I am working on it in the ways I know how and in the ways I can actually control and change. School has been engrossing and exhausting. The original plan of just taking it easy, of lightening my work load so I can just gracefully finish my coursework has not quite gone as planned. I am taking two classes. One class, ENGL 556B: Cyborg Democracies, is with my Ph.D. chair and is right up the alley that my dissertation might be about. It's got a ton of reading. The other class, ENGL 556A: Genealogy of Black Cultural Studies, is supposed to be just a readings course for me (in other words, I just attend class, participate, and do the reading). It's got more than a ton of reading. A buttcrapload ton of reading. Just keeping up has been pretty rigorous. I must have to ready 500 pages or more a week, and since a lot of it is theory or unfamiliar material, it seems like a lot more and it takes a bit longer to do. I am challenged and I am learning a lot, but it's not as restful as I was hoping it to be. I have done one presentation already for my Black Cultural Studies class (which I really didn't have to do but I wanted to show my commitment to the material). I have another presentation to do next Monday for my other class.

The hardest day for me is Wednesday. I have class on Monday and Wednesday, and I teach on Tuesday and Thursday. So, I have to be on campus most of the week. But Wednesdays are exhausting because I'm at school nearly all day. I have office hours in the morning, then I have a break, then I have back to back class. My cyborg class is two hours, and then my black cultural studies class is three. I take so many notes (a lot for a graduate class) that my hand is sore for the next day. My biggest issue is just trying to keep all the reading and the concepts and the details and the material in my head and discrete enough that I don't end up confusing the two classes. When I get home on Wednesday, all I want to do is just become a slug and watch fun television (like Project Runway, which alas is almost over).

Somewhere, sometime, I have to get to work on putting my exam lists together. I have no idea when or how. A big roadblock is that I am not entirely sure what my dissertation project or focus is going to be. All I have right now is a working idea that I am going to write about cyberspace and queerness and identity and democratic potential and technoculture. It is so much easier to come up with your lists if you already know what you want to do. For me, the lists and the exam are exploratory. It's all a mess and a jumble. I really need to just sit down and start. That's what revision is for later. And maybe a larger pattern or picture or problem will emerge.

Teaching has been time and energy consuming as well. My ENGL 111 composition class on "Imagining Cyberspace" is going well, though my students are still a little trepidatious about the stories, the material, and the central idea of the course. Class discussion has been underwhelming. I need to wake them up a bit before it's too late. Right now, I think they are just insecure about the readings and afraid to say something wrong or stupid or naive. It is different teaching literature, in this case cyberpunk short stories. On the one hand, I want to teach them to appreciate it, to value it for its artistic and creative and narrative merit. On the other hand, I want to make sure that they understand that there are ways to engage literature that are critical, theoretical, and relevant to their lives no matter their discipline. It's a difficult challenge. I am warming up to my class, and hopefully they'll get past the shy stage and dive in.

This past Tuesday, I played the "label game" with my students, a diversity activity about stereotyping and labeling and such. It's always a big hit because they get to role play. After the label game, I always have the class identify what my labels are -- real or percieved -- and write them on the board. I leave the room when they do this, and they must reach consensus for a label to go on the board. In the past, most classes are euphemistic about my sexuality (only one class has ever put on the board "gay"); most use words like "ambiguous" or "feminine" or "metrosexual." This quarter's class is no different, but they take the cake with their stab at what they think I am:

     male
     asian
     teacher
     unorthodox
     punk
     intellectual
     good person
     conversationalist
     humorous
     blunt
     effeminate (in a Johnny Deppish in POTC kind of way)
     techie
     nerd
     confident
     liberal

Hysterical. I guess being compared to Johnny Depp isn't such a bad thing. It makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I have a lot to do this weekend. I'm just going to have to chug along. I am going to spend a very quiet Friday the 13th at home. Do some laundry. Get some reading done. Maybe even get to bed early tonight. That's all for now. More soon.

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"to dadi" | sunday | october 15, 2006 | 11:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY to my father, who I miss very much. I really hope you have a great one (and I hope you got my message and birthday fax). Much love, always.

"birthday wishes" | wednesday | october 18, 2006 | 11:01 am

APPY BIRTHDAY to my friend, Tracy! I hope you had a great day and night! Sorry I'm not there to drink it up with you!

"hello, it's your past" | friday | october 20, 2006 | 11:01 am

GOT ANOTHER E-MAIL FROM A FORMER STUDENT THIS WEEK. It's always really nice and heartening to hear nice and heartening things from your past. I'm glad I am so blessed and honored to have a kind of legacy -- another reason why I love teaching so much. It's awesome. Here's what they wrote:

Hi Ed,

You probably don't remember me. My name is Eduardo and I took ENGL101X in the Fall of 2002 at the University of Maryland with you. I was looking at random pages online when I accidentally saw yours and I thought I'd drop you a line, or two.

So Fall 2002 was my first semester at Maryland (and in the US). It was really tough for me: new language, no friends, cold weather, and all. In fact, now that I look back, I think I have suppressed almost all memory from that time. But I do remember your class because it was the only class I enjoyed that semester. The only class I'd look forward to every week.

I remember the first day of classes. It took me a while to find the CSPAC building, but I was the first one there. When you walked in, I thought, "I hope this guy is not in my class." I must say that, in my country, people look the same, dress the same and behave the same. So anyone that looked "different" seemed REALLY foreign to me (I'd never seen a guy with pink/blue/purple hair, or with a mohawk) . For my surprise, not only were you in my class, you were the instructor! By the end of the semester, I felt you were a good friend. Someone I liked being around. In fact, someone I identified with.

I also remember the label game . I think I had the "poor" label. I remember my friend Stephanie had "prostitute", which I thought was really funny/weird. I don't remember how we labeled you, though. But I think "punk" was one of them.

I remember the response papers, watching Smallville and Friends, watching a documentary on the [Seattle] riots (which made me so depressed and angry), our discussions on the Laramie Project, you saying Hillary Clinton could be the next president of the US, and Levels of the game. I actually I remember a line from that book: "He had talent to squander." (I remember no one knew what squander meant, myself included).

I remember getting a C on my first paper. I remember getting an A on a paper too...I remember that, on the last day of classes, you showed us your UMD ID from when you were a freshman and also some of your work. I remember a poem inspired by Anne Frank's story, if I'm not mistaken, that had a big impact on me and that I'd really like to read again.

Anyways, you're probably not interested on all this nostalgia I'm feeling right now. So I'll end here. But I'd like to thank you for being such a cool teacher, for inspiring me so much and for making that first semester enjoyable!

All the best,
Eduardo.

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"sometimes" | friday | october 20, 2006 | 11:01 am

WENT TO CASTALIA LAST NIGHT. Castalia is the University of Washington's creative writing MFA's monthly readings night. Five current MFAs read their work, both poetry and fiction. It was surprisingly good. And it was a little inspiring and sad for me. Why the ambivalence? I think deep down I still wish I had done an MFA. In that spirit, I offer a tiny poem:

     Sometimes
     the poetry is the only escape,
     the only way back home,
     a tiny crack in the face of memory
     where I can sneak glimpses
     of what I left so boldly
     just five months ago.
     I never went till now.
     I hadn't seen the country of
     myself, my self.
     The nest was too comfortable,
     so familiar, familial.
     But you left first, I know,
     to leave the pain in your blood,
     in the sad faces I wore
     whenever I held your
     uncalloused hands.
     And I was wrong.
     I thought I could grow up
     faster out here,
     catch up to my birthday
     in a city that knows
     rebuilding after great changes.

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"the great pumpkin" | tuesday | october 31, 2006 | 11:01 am

WAS THE GREAT PUMPKIN FOR HALLOWEEN. It was an easy costume for a party I went to over the weekend. My mohawk was green (the stem). I wore a bright orange t-shirt with black eyes and mouth (body). And I had brown shorts on (the ground). Of course, there were some youngin's there that had no idea what or who The Great Pumpkin is. Sigh.