coldhearted scientist وداد

For some reason we are not allowed to count as part of our workload, which is otherwise defined very broadly, etters of recommendation and general advising for graduate school admissions as part of teaching, or of advising, or of service to the profession. Translations done pro bono for Halliburton would be community service, so I suppose this is at least that. But it is in any case something I consider part of my job, and that I expect to be part of my job. What I have never done in other academic jobs but the present one is send e-mail like this:

Dear —,

After some investigation I have found a Spanish language program in Mexico City that appears to fit your needs: UNAM’s courses in language and culture for foreigners. Here is the calendar for 2013, and you may want to do some more clicking around their website. Please come in to see me if you would like to be filled in a little more on how this kind of program works.

UNAM is not an affiliate institution of ours so the setup legwork will not be done for you, but I can explain how to do it and guide you through the steps. You should be aware that while most credit will transfer, it will not transfer for a grade. Cost, however, is the same or slightly lower than the cost at our affiliate institution in Mexico, and the program is more varied. As you know, state scholarships only apply to programs led by our own faculty, and Federal financial aid does not apply to institutions with which we are not affiliated.

If this is still what you want to do–and I do recommend it given the interests and priorities you have described to me–, we should contact UNAM for application forms. I gather from the website that one is to register in person, but I am not comfortable sending you to Mexico City on your own without an admissions letter or a concrete plan for housing. I would also like to make sure practical issues such as insurance are taken care of before you go.

Enjoy the rest of the break!

–Professor Zero.

Do you do this? I mean: do you search for study abroad programs for your students like this? My other institutions had programs and also study abroad officers. But when I arrived here a colleague from another department brought a student to my office and said: “She would like to study in Seville. Can you please arrange for this?” I was floored, especially as this was still the very late 20th century and the web, the ERASMUS program, and so on were much less developed than they are now. “Why are you asking me?” I wondered. “Do I look like a study abroad office in clogs?” But now I do it quite automatically, and this is another of the things I do with my time.

I feel happy when I can get someone somewhere beyond their wildest dreams, or hear the parental sighs of relief and happiness when I send them a URL that shows them exactly where their child proposes to go so that they realize it is a reasonable plan. But you would be surprised how much research and explanation and faxing and so on it takes to get people to their sites.

♦

I may have demystified César Vallejo along with my non Vallejo related research project but evidently I have not demystified the university. Everyone is posting on how wonderful it is and how little they work, but I have my stomach in a knot. My experience of academia is one of so many simultaneous double binds I do not have time to describe them all again. It is a fact, though, that it takes me time to steel myself to go in the building, and time again to recover from having been, and I am embarrassed that this much of my time goes to such things. I need to find a way to come back to myself more quickly and this is a PTSD thing, I suppose. I need to keep standing on my authority, as this could be one antidote.

Everyone else is feeling grateful today, and at one level the hardest thing of all about academic life is listening to their speeches. “Aren’t we lucky!” said all the boys together as they raised another glass, and leaned a little closer. “Aren’t we lucky!” I am glad to be working but I would rather not have to worship the profession. Every poor decision I have ever made has been unnecessary and has been based on this imperative to worship. I am glad to be working and I enjoy my job, but I would like it if we were allowed to be like other professionals and just say we were interested in our jobs, not that we yearn to bleed and die for them.

♦

In Reeducation we learned that emotions were more important than beliefs or feelings or reasoning or ideas. Negative emotions were more genuine than positive ones. They had to be rested in and unraveled while the rest of life was set aside.

What did I do before Reeducation, when these images and voices from the distant past surrounded me? I said: go from me now, you have no place with me now. I thought that was totally legitimate. Reeducation called it “denial” but I was right. And in those days I had the authority, felt I had the authority, to say go from me now. I hereby draw such authority to me again. 

Another thing, and I have just come up with this — I knew it before, but I am just coming up with it in the form of ready response — is to take as a default position that what feels wrong, is. Both in my first education and in Reeducation what felt wrong was supposed to be right, and what felt right was either not my right to have or was the sign of a defect and in any case, was to be thrown away right now. But perhaps pain is in fact the result of mistreating oneself, and perhaps one has the right and also the means to stop it.

♦

In the chat box there is a non-school example of the kind of brain-twisting that goes on at and about work. I want to be able to respond as lucidly as my friend here. Check out the good analytical skills, turning on a dime:

Z: Someone saw a post by me about Walmart donating to anti-civil rights groups and commented: “Well, nonwhites are not forced to work there!” In how many ways is that comment offensive, exactly, and how can one respond?

Genius: 1. The commenter is hearkening back to the 1950s.

Z: And doesn’t seem to understand it is at least theoretically possible to be polite to Negroes while also materially supporting the maintenance of racial hierarchies.

Genius: 2. The nonwhites remark implies that somehow there is something inherently different about being white, as opposed to the diversity of people which comprises the modern United States and world at large.

Z: Yes, very good point.

Genius: So, you have a variety of angles to chastise the commenter’s myopic perspective.

Genius: “Rather than dismiss the post out of hand without even having bothered to read it, a person with even a modest understanding of the diversity of the country in which they find themselves and a marginal awareness of the exploitative nature of Walmart and other modern day corporations and their ongoing maneuvers to further reduce their workers and by extension the public at large to squalor, would think rather strongly that these actions are also directed at his own person. It is a shame that labels which date back to segregationist times and still reek of their injustice and cruelty are thrown about without much consideration, speaking volumes about the people who still use them.”

Axé.