Had dreams last night of being admitted into the bourgeois class, where everything cost a superordinate amount of money. I had all these $50 notes in my satchel, and I was at a place at the University — like a faculty club — where this guy cooked up a pet snake for the guests. I began eating cheese on a rye cracker, but it was from a very expensive plate of food, and I hadn’t realised it. I would have to pay at least $50 for absent-mindedly eating this rye cracker.
And then I was in my place of upbringing in Zimbabwe and I had a mushy curry pastie in a bag, but the man who went inside the door before me took it off me.
Actually, all of mine were about entry to patriarchy. Seeing this now is downright chilling. The message was, I believe, that I was to do this without having it mean entry to patriarchy, but that I did not understand that. Or, looking at all characters and situations as myself, that I *was* doing this without entering patriarchy but could not accept it. Or something like that. Very interesting. (In the dreams, I wanted the degree to be conferred by a man and it was not. So I started driving all over California looking for one who could confirm it. I looked all over the Redwoods and then ended up on some freeway onramp in SoCal, with no idea where to look next. Absent father or something happening here.)
I just have a sense that I’ve blotted my patriarchal copybook too much to be admitted entry into this space. Somehow in my dream I was in it, though, only among other women who I liked. But there was a strange dream about this one woman, she was taking all my $50 bills and — actually she wanted to buy tampons with them. Every time I gave her another 50 it wasn’t enough. I said I will pay half for them. $150. But she said, no she needed $210, which is what they cost. So I gave her that amount from the notes in my satchel. But then I said, really, you know you don’t need to buy them from the faculty shop, just go to the student toilets and get one from the machine there. So she gave me all my money back and said she would do without. She seemed very calm about it. But then when I looked in my bag again, I couldn’t work out if the money had been returned or not. It was a mystery.
Then I went back to Zimbabwe, to the old house I used to live in. It was very vivid. I have never had such a vivid dream of that time and place before. Only it was from an adult’s perspective (something I have never had, either.) All of the plush opulence of growing up in Zimbabwe somehow seemed to be revealed in a very different light, as having been created by a very child’s eye perspective. We had lime-coated (white washed) walls on our house, for instance, which I saw for what it was for the first time. It wasn’t showy like in Australia. There was no “face-brick”. And it was very dark and calm and still, and there was a lot of space around the house. That was when the monster red firetruck pulled up outside the house, and the fireman got out and went into the front door. And I gave the food I had to him.
So what am I concerned about? Necessities for survival? My need or lack of need for certain kinds of spiritual food? Whether academia and its claims are overblown? (Will it cost me a great deal to manage my gender differences within academia?) Whether, if I go back to Zimbabwe, I will fall back upon my childish ways of deferring to the patriarchy (despite the fact that there is so little in it for me)?
I had dreams like this during that time, of going back home and having it not be washed with idealizations from then, also. And yet the dreams were very realistic, comfortingly so.
Giving food vs. negotiating about buying tampons. Women having to buy tampons from a faculty shop or a student restroom. All this mediation and it is about menstruation.
Verily there is something in here about academia and authenticity and women’s space and so on and it is hard to figure out, or maybe not so hard, but it isn’t obvious.
I think all my academic problems involve patriarchy and are exacerbated by not realizing this, not giving myself credit for this.
So, there was another aspect to the dream where my friend said she didn’t need the tampons after all. So, I think this is not a dream about literal tampons but a dream about feminine bleeding. I believe that I am thinking of how to acquire a job that avoids this. I do not want to have to gush, to emote, to atone. Above all, I do not want to have to form relationships that keep a track record of payments and counterpayments of favours on the emotional level. (To my mind that is what feminine communties are like — everybody keeps a record of how the other person is doing; whether they are ‘owed’ more punishments, or more on the side of token rewards and positive gestures at any particular time.) I don’t want to keep track in this way. If somebody owes me something and they do not pay me back, it is not the worst thing that could happen to me. But I am afraid of eating from the communal plate and falling into debt, and then not realising in time that I owe somebody something. I don’t want to have to keep track of subtle relationship nuances in this way. It is a form of feminine bleeding and unnecessary suffering.
So I think I have to consider who the other person was in my dream. She is a fellow martial artist with a Masters degree in history, who teaches essay writing in the faculty of Engineering.
She seems to have avoided the kind of feminine environment that I want to avoid. Her subject area is very impersonal.
Yes, that kind of feminine bleeding is indeed terrible. I do it at work, feeling I’m forced to, and dislike it. I like our new chair because he doesn’t require as much of it as most academics have in my experience.
I fantasize about having an impersonal subject area for those reasons.
I’m determined that whatever I do for pay should be impersonal. I don’t care if it has no prestige attached to it — that really isn’t the point (except in the sense of avoiding those who abuse those they consider to lack prestige!)
I think I need to find work in the Australian educational system where I am teaching Asians. They tend to be cooler of mind, and more committing to studying, without creating unnecessary hassles. I imagine there are many schools, technical colleges and so on, that could use me here. And then, of course, I must continue to write, independently.
Actually, I wonder if this is part of my culture shock at becoming a professor, the absence of Asian students. All through college and graduate school, everyone was Asian and I learned to teach with Asian students (and Mexican ones, who were quite Native American which has its own Asian quality about it).
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Had dreams last night of being admitted into the bourgeois class, where everything cost a superordinate amount of money. I had all these $50 notes in my satchel, and I was at a place at the University — like a faculty club — where this guy cooked up a pet snake for the guests. I began eating cheese on a rye cracker, but it was from a very expensive plate of food, and I hadn’t realised it. I would have to pay at least $50 for absent-mindedly eating this rye cracker.
And then I was in my place of upbringing in Zimbabwe and I had a mushy curry pastie in a bag, but the man who went inside the door before me took it off me.
Weird — the cost of admission to the PhD? I had all these really creative dreams like that around mine…
Actually, all of mine were about entry to patriarchy. Seeing this now is downright chilling. The message was, I believe, that I was to do this without having it mean entry to patriarchy, but that I did not understand that. Or, looking at all characters and situations as myself, that I *was* doing this without entering patriarchy but could not accept it. Or something like that. Very interesting. (In the dreams, I wanted the degree to be conferred by a man and it was not. So I started driving all over California looking for one who could confirm it. I looked all over the Redwoods and then ended up on some freeway onramp in SoCal, with no idea where to look next. Absent father or something happening here.)
I just have a sense that I’ve blotted my patriarchal copybook too much to be admitted entry into this space. Somehow in my dream I was in it, though, only among other women who I liked. But there was a strange dream about this one woman, she was taking all my $50 bills and — actually she wanted to buy tampons with them. Every time I gave her another 50 it wasn’t enough. I said I will pay half for them. $150. But she said, no she needed $210, which is what they cost. So I gave her that amount from the notes in my satchel. But then I said, really, you know you don’t need to buy them from the faculty shop, just go to the student toilets and get one from the machine there. So she gave me all my money back and said she would do without. She seemed very calm about it. But then when I looked in my bag again, I couldn’t work out if the money had been returned or not. It was a mystery.
Then I went back to Zimbabwe, to the old house I used to live in. It was very vivid. I have never had such a vivid dream of that time and place before. Only it was from an adult’s perspective (something I have never had, either.) All of the plush opulence of growing up in Zimbabwe somehow seemed to be revealed in a very different light, as having been created by a very child’s eye perspective. We had lime-coated (white washed) walls on our house, for instance, which I saw for what it was for the first time. It wasn’t showy like in Australia. There was no “face-brick”. And it was very dark and calm and still, and there was a lot of space around the house. That was when the monster red firetruck pulled up outside the house, and the fireman got out and went into the front door. And I gave the food I had to him.
So what am I concerned about? Necessities for survival? My need or lack of need for certain kinds of spiritual food? Whether academia and its claims are overblown? (Will it cost me a great deal to manage my gender differences within academia?) Whether, if I go back to Zimbabwe, I will fall back upon my childish ways of deferring to the patriarchy (despite the fact that there is so little in it for me)?
So, there it is.
I had dreams like this during that time, of going back home and having it not be washed with idealizations from then, also. And yet the dreams were very realistic, comfortingly so.
Giving food vs. negotiating about buying tampons. Women having to buy tampons from a faculty shop or a student restroom. All this mediation and it is about menstruation.
Verily there is something in here about academia and authenticity and women’s space and so on and it is hard to figure out, or maybe not so hard, but it isn’t obvious.
I think all my academic problems involve patriarchy and are exacerbated by not realizing this, not giving myself credit for this.
So, there was another aspect to the dream where my friend said she didn’t need the tampons after all. So, I think this is not a dream about literal tampons but a dream about feminine bleeding. I believe that I am thinking of how to acquire a job that avoids this. I do not want to have to gush, to emote, to atone. Above all, I do not want to have to form relationships that keep a track record of payments and counterpayments of favours on the emotional level. (To my mind that is what feminine communties are like — everybody keeps a record of how the other person is doing; whether they are ‘owed’ more punishments, or more on the side of token rewards and positive gestures at any particular time.) I don’t want to keep track in this way. If somebody owes me something and they do not pay me back, it is not the worst thing that could happen to me. But I am afraid of eating from the communal plate and falling into debt, and then not realising in time that I owe somebody something. I don’t want to have to keep track of subtle relationship nuances in this way. It is a form of feminine bleeding and unnecessary suffering.
So I think I have to consider who the other person was in my dream. She is a fellow martial artist with a Masters degree in history, who teaches essay writing in the faculty of Engineering.
She seems to have avoided the kind of feminine environment that I want to avoid. Her subject area is very impersonal.
Yes, that kind of feminine bleeding is indeed terrible. I do it at work, feeling I’m forced to, and dislike it. I like our new chair because he doesn’t require as much of it as most academics have in my experience.
I fantasize about having an impersonal subject area for those reasons.
I’m determined that whatever I do for pay should be impersonal. I don’t care if it has no prestige attached to it — that really isn’t the point (except in the sense of avoiding those who abuse those they consider to lack prestige!)
Impersonal, that’s a tall order. But for me today it’s a good reminder to depersonalize a couple of things here at work.
I think I need to find work in the Australian educational system where I am teaching Asians. They tend to be cooler of mind, and more committing to studying, without creating unnecessary hassles. I imagine there are many schools, technical colleges and so on, that could use me here. And then, of course, I must continue to write, independently.
That plan sounds like it could work.
Actually, I wonder if this is part of my culture shock at becoming a professor, the absence of Asian students. All through college and graduate school, everyone was Asian and I learned to teach with Asian students (and Mexican ones, who were quite Native American which has its own Asian quality about it).