In which Piers realizes something that he should have known already.

There has been a tendency to think about my mental health over the past ten years as a set of poles:  I'm either "depressed," or "experiencing depression," or I'm "not depressed."  I don't know if anyone other than myself has thought of it in those terms, but that's the way I've tended to view it.  I have been wrong in my perspective. I realized today, as I have been sitting at my desk being mostly useless because I can't really find enough energy to focus on any one thing, that this too is a symptom of my condition.  As is the tendency to want to sleep a lot.  As is the general sense of anhedonia that I've felt for most of November.  As are periods of deep withdrawal. As are periods when I don't particularly want to eat.  When seen as a set of symptoms of a chronic illness, each coming and going at different times and in response to a huge range of stimuli, these individual episodes make a lot more sense.  None of them should individually cause a panic or a sense of crisis; they are unpleasant, but hardly disastrous in themselves.

In which Piers WORKS HARDER

It's not the worst problem in the world to have, but it is something I've been grappling with:  the problem with being a "gifted child" and growing up with that designation is that one begins to believe that anything is possible if one works hard enough.  This works fairly well, if you're lucky, all the way through college. 

The downside of this orientation comes when Real Life rears its head (whenever that happens).  Eventually, one comes up against an obstacle (either within or without) that cannot be surmounted by any amount of effort.  Faced with an unwonted failure, the interpretation must be that there just wasn't enough effort put forth (itself a failure). 

WORK HARDER goes the internal refrain, until it breaks.  There are cases where all the effort in the world is just not enough, and it's nobody's fault.  Time to let it go?  Undoubtedly.

Depression is anger turned inward.

So if I'm depressed, I may need to look at what anger I'm turning inward.

What do I have to be angry at myself about?
At whom or what am I angry that I have anger to turn on myself?

As I told The Runner last night: God gives different things to different people. He gave me a mind that is destined to never be at peace with itself.

In Which Piers is dumbfounded

When sitting in an executive committee meeting (with, among others, the chancellor, the provost, a UT trustee, and the dean of the business school) and taking minutes, having a guest speaker do the following over the course of 15 minutes is, well, breathtaking:

1) told how he has always thought the faculty senate was an utter waste of time.
2) described how on two separate occasions the information he was to present was brought before a senate committee and never made it to the floor of the senate itself, which disgusted him so much that he walked straight out of the senate meeting.
3) showed us the figures, which essentially prove that pay raises have not kept up with the Consumer Price Index (duh.  But this was his big revelation).
4) insulted persons who choose music or english as majors/careers because they don't make as much money.
5) accused the chancellor (to his face) of attempting to stifle dissent.
6) told us we didn't have any business even pretending to work on important stuff if we couldn't immediately provide the $ cost to the university for a 1% pay raise across the board.
7) scrawled vulgarities on a flipchart to punctuate his points
8) told us that he expects to be punished for saying what he said
9) when asked how he would propose to fix the problem--i.e., where the money should come from--continued to point back to the chart and said, "give me my money."
10) baited/mocked the member of the committee who showed outward disgust at what he was doing.

...and this is just what I remember.  I try to imagine that most people are trying to do the right thing most of the time, but this--wow.  And the person presiding over the meeting just let it go on and apparently didn't see any problem with what had transpired.  Not sure what to make of that either.

A mere five years

During lunch today, The Runner (while attempting to corral an unusually amped-up Youngest Boy) remarked that we used to have just one.  The above is a picture from when that was the case...a picture taken almost exactly five years ago.  How much has changed since then.  In all honesty, Piers feels a little more ragged now than he did then.

Monday Update, Weekend from Hades Edition

I contracted a bit of a cold late last week.  My voice failed on Friday.  I was forced to stay home with the Youngest One (who himself was pretty ill) on Saturday while The Runner and the other two went to a birthday party at Ya-Ya's Island.  By Saturday night, I was having violent chills.  Did better yesterday.  Feeling okay today, except that I still have no voice, so I cannot teach.  This is all following the usual progression, but it's no fun.  Doctor?  Why yes.

One of the downsides of my teaching "method":  if I can't hold forth, I can't really hold class.  EL, my pedagogy instructor at UNC, used to tell me that I worked way too hard as a teacher.  In cases like this, one can see her point.

Also no fun:  having a 20 month old who feels like krep but doesn't know how to talk about it, and whose respiratory distress may or may not be:  allergies, asthma, croup, tuberculosis, pneumonia, or the grippe. He is doing much better today, thank goodness.

There are circumstances at work that are making it especially hard to be positive.  I am happy to serve in positions of leadership/service, but I am only able to do my job properly when my superiors do their jobs properly.  There is one in particular who can't be bothered, so it has gotten increasingly frustrating as the fall semester has progressed.  And we still have the rest of Nov., Dec., Jan., Feb., Mar., and Apr. to go.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 37

This is a typical ailment for me:  I get a cold, and then it settles in my sinuses and my throat, and then I lose my voice, and then sound like a bass for a few days.  I taught two of my three classes today, and got some funny looks because my voice was so out of whack.  I also got a couple of funny responses, like the one above.

Steady . . . steady . . .

There are times when everyone in this house appears to be on a different page, during which every child appears to be having his own crisis, and in which there are multiple melt-downs per child per day. 

This is one of those times.

Bitter the taste in my mouth

Just returned from the conference with the people at Number One Son's school.  His IQ scores weren't even close.  His OTHER scores weren't even close.  Either we've just been mistaken all along, or the results of the tests weren't all that reliable.

I'm not disappointed in the boy, but I am disappointed that my expectations and hopes were so out of line with reality.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 36

When teaching Paradise Lost, I always emphasize the portion in Book 4 where Adam and Eve are both presented to us in all their naked glory:

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,

God-like erect, with native honour clad

In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all,

And worthy seem'd; for in their looks divine

The image of their glorious Maker shone,

Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure—

Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd,

Whence true authority in men: though both

Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd;

For contemplation he and valour form'd,

For softness she and sweet attractive grace;

He for God only, she for God in him.

His fair, large front and eye sublime declar'd

Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad;

She, as a veil down to the slender waist,

Her unadorned golden tresses wore

Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd

As the vine curls her tendrils—which implied

Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway,

And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,

Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,

And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. 

I emphasize several things in this passage, among them the connection Milton makes between Eve's hair and her alluring sexuality.  I point out that a woman's hair, particularly when it's long and tousled, is highly erotic.  I know I'm on pretty solid ground in saying that, but I say it with a bit of caution because most of my students don't like to talk about eroticism in class.

 

The complicating factor yesterday was that in one of my classes, there's a young woman (a soccer player) with long, tousled, lovely hair.  She sits on the front row.  

 

I made sure I didn't look at her!  

Monday Update, Hiatus Over Edition

This past week was the week of preparing to do battle over Number One Son's status at the primary school.  After receiving word that he had not qualified for the CLUE program (I don't know what it stands for), we went into a funk and then started to gather evidence and advocates for a counter argument.  As it turns out, he can't be tested again this year, so we'll work on things the best we can until next year.

He has begun complaining that his stomach hurts, and has mentioned that he's bored at school.  We'll keep trying for his sake, but it's frustrating.

We also learned what happened that made his test scores come out lower than they probably should have:  when the time came for the test, a woman that he did not know came and got him, then took him to a room he'd never been in, and then he was under the impression that he was to work through the test as quickly as possible.  That's a trifecta of trouble for our little introvert.  It may be that he never qualifies for the gifted student class, but I would feel more comfortable with the result if the test had been given in a way so as to reach a reliable, valid result.

We also had a pitiful moment with him yesterday.  When we got home from church, he was acting really odd--didn't want to eat, complained about his stomach and head hurting.  I went back to check on him after he had been in his room for a while, and asked what was going on.  He told me that when he was in sunday school, the teacher kept asking so so many questions, that his brain felt like it was going to "pop."  After a bit more fruitless questioning, The Runner decided that she would have him draw it.  Which he did.  As it turns out, she was asking questions that he didn't know the answer to, apparently working her way around the table, and he got really embarrassed and anxious (look at all the question marks around his little figure).  Poor guy.

Speaking of poor guys, Little Red had a bout with asthma this past weekend.  Kept him up a good portion of Friday night/Saturday morning, which meant that it kept the parents up.  Yes, I did my stint too.  There was a big plus:  on Saturday afternoon it was just me and him at the house, and when he's by himself, he's a different child.  We did maze after maze and colored about a dozen pictures, and played board games, and he was as happy as a clam.  It was nice...I'm not sure I've ever done that with him before.

Still putting the house back together after the carpet-related disarray.

I'll be back

Sooner or later.