TA training

I still think teachers are born, not made. You can learn how to speak clearly, and organize your thoughts more effectively, but that makes you a better presenter, not a better teacher. You can learn how to handle conflict and control dicussions, but that makes you a better mediator. You can learn how to be a better administrator, a fairer grader, and you can spend more effort and time getting to know your subject matter so that you don't look like an idiot. But teaching is something else, something almost spiritual, the ability to read your student and connect in just the right way in a multitude of different situations, and either you can do that, or you can't. i don't know whether all the actual teachers i know agree, but that's where i am right now.

(I'm the only other second-year student who actually has a recitation to lead and teach this semester.)

i submitted the review paper. it's good in certain bits, and (i think) very deficient in others. i don't have a good enough grasp of neurochemistry to say anything beyond x accumulates and does this to y; i don't have a conceptual understanding of what's going on, so those sections tend to be laundry lists of results with a dithering statement or two tying them together.

wednesday

no ceiling

no carpets

on tuesday i left the house at 6 and worked on my paper for 10 straight hours.

the housemate had arrived in philly the night before, and we had arranged to get dinner and see the place. i spent the entire walk up spruce st. preparing him psychologically for the wreckage, but like the other housemate, he seemed completely unruffled by the state of affairs,* and was in fact rather pleased with the size of his room. there’s definitely something strange happening; i’ve gone down the rabbit hole to a place where everyone defers to me and thinks that i’ve somehow got everything under control, when in actual fact i’m mere moments away from doing an ophelia and running through campus with petunias in my hair**.

i walked back with the housemate to the hangout house to say hi to kinjal, who was in the middle of one of those 45-minute showers that women take. we hung out downstairs waiting for her and discussed rice cookers and flat-screen tvs and wii sports, and then kinjal appeared sans dinner and we went with her to get fried chicken. grace had invited some of the new grad students to her place to watch high fidelity (used to be one of my favorite movies while i was at duke; have gotten over it a little), so we clattered along and disturbed her advisor and her advisor’s dogs***, and watched john cusack being awesome, and i forgot for a little while that i was going half-mad and pretended that i was a college freshman again on the grotty blackwell sofas with han and kwonie and all the rest, thinking: ”now is the time. now is the time i get to figure things out”


* still no ceiling, no carpets, no fully functioning bathroom, unfinished floors, incomplete electrical fixtures, etc.

** the housemate, incidentally, is from oahu. he’s lived there all his life, including his four years in college, and this is his first time away from home and family. this tacitly, automatically and unquestionably makes me the big brother (again). to make matters worse, the other housemate has moved to the mean streets of west philadelphia from nowheresville, ohio, and although I haven’t had a chance to speak with him much yet, i do know that he’s fresh out of college and potentially very blur. i have a bad feeling that this entire enterprise is a house of cards built upon a chocolate teapot, but for now i’m going to shut up and pray that providence will guide our ship through stormy seas.

*** i’m not sure i’ve said this before, but grace lives on the top floor of her advisor’s house. her married advisor, and their 6-month-old son. go calculate your own weirdness quotient on that.

lucid dreaming

i got a chance to have a chat with the advisor about this while we were waiting for my protocol to be reviewed. he thinks that all dreams are lucid dreams, that steve laberge is rubbish and should not be taken seriously, and that people should do real science rather than try and make the headlines with sexy, unfalsifiable nonsense. i asked him to clarify what he meant by "all dreams are lucid dreams", and he said that beyond a certain developmental stage, we are always able, at the point of self-reflection, to distinguish dreams from reality, and that moreover there's always a "meta-awareness" within a dream that is making the distinction (which is why when we "die" in a dream, we don't really die). this seemed to me to be finessing the definition more than anything else, but the advisor was unmoved, and i had no particular interest in trying to disabuse him. i am very curious now though to get other experts' opinions on the matter, because i had been given to believe that laberge was at the very least not doing psuedoscience. that shall be my mission for the neuroscience conference this year. i hope tononi doesn't think i'm an idiot.

on monday, i woke up at 6, freezing. the contractors are leaving the AC on 24/7 so that the paint can dry (fs points out that this is going to cost me an arm and a leg), and all the cold air in the house sinks down to my room -- this is fine in the evenings when it's 80-something outside, but by the early morning it's hyperborean, and my duvet is stashed somewhere completely out of reach.

i went back to the old apartment, and took a shower, and cleared out the last of my stuff, a process which involved a tearful parting with half a tub of breyer's peppermint chocolate-chip ice cream that i never got round to finishing. there was also 7/8 of a bottle of tonic water, and 2 bottles of sam adams, which i pressed onto a random and rather bemused stranger in the hallway.

---

i had mixed feelings returning the keys to that apartment. on the one hand, i was really growing to hate it towards the end, what with the rodents and trash outside my window; on the other, it represented freedom from responsibility, the ticket that meant that, in one aspect of my life at least, i could just say "screw it". renting fosters apathy. renting hardens you to certain things, but it also makes you soft. at least, i think so. the keys are gone now, and i'm on the wire, and i suppose i'm soon going to find out.

i moved out of my old apartment on sunday. moving house is a completely different kettle of fish when you have furniture, all calluses and crushed fingers and imprecations. thomas gave me a hand with the heavy lifting, and i got a u-haul and wondered how i ended up with so much junk (how is it that i own so much tupperware?). the new place was far from ready. all my crap went in the garage, and we did 2 trips, and i learned that driving a van on the right side of the road is nothing like driving a car on the left, and that parallel parking, difficult for me at the best of times, is a monstrous bitch when you can't see anything that's behind you.

the renovations are horribly behind schedule. on sunday, there was no hot water, only one functioning toilet, and no ceiling or lights in my bedroom. also, my room was freezing despite the central air being off, and i was tempted for a while to set up a bivouac on the lawn until reason prevailed and i remembered that i was in west philadelphia. darkness fell. i read the new yorker by torchlight on an inflatable bed amid plaster and plywood, and thought about the new espresso maker i wanted to buy, and said a little prayer that everything would be all right.

the contractor got me up at the crack of dawn to go pick out a fridge. he's italian and fits all the stereotypes from the mile-a-minute mouth to the meatball and sausage gravy simmering at home ("that's-a spicy meatball!"). we got onto the i-95 with the rolling stones on the airwaves and the contractor talking nineteen-to-the-dozen about wayward family members, the philly mafia, and the fallen state of humankind. it was hazy over the schuylkill; that and the jet lag and the conversation combined to make everything seem extremely surreal. made a stop at the dump in north philly along the way. "welcome to the badlands", said the contractor, and proceeded to recount the time when a gang of thugs beat him half to death for his truck 15 years ago. ah, real life. "people here have no work ethic," the contractor explained. "they get up at 11, collect their welfare, down a handle, then go out and shoot each other up. fucking animals." i nodded in agreement, while trying to look as inconspicuous as possible in the passenger seat.

we were in and out of the dump in 10 minutes, then did a wawa stop for coffee, where the contractor proceeded to flirt with (i think) an old friend -- a busty woman resembling faye dunaway wearing cut-off everythings. i was starting to warm up to the situation by this point -- you may not be aware of my chameleonic nature -- and back on the highway it surprised me not at all to learn that the contractor

a) got someone pregnant when he was 16, and had to drop out of high school to get his GED because of it
b) dated governor rendell's sister and spent a month in nassau and a week in the best suite in the plaza hotel in manhattan
c) was in the navy for four years, and
d) shot a man in reno just to watch him die

well, not the last thing, but maybe. i countered with several made-up stories about myself (and some not-so-made up NS stories). we really do get along splendidly.

at the appliance shop, the contractor nearly got into a fistfight with a burly fellow who must have weighed at least 250 lbs, and who wanted him to "slow the fuck down" while coming down the driveway. the contractor counterargued that we were doing "fucking 5 miles per hour", which was not at all true, and things kind of took their course from there. i was totally in the game by now, and waltzed into the shop completely unconcerned while various insults were hurled back and forth, and had almost picked out the fridge by the time the dust had settled (stainless steel: 68.5" x 33" x 32").

it was almost noon. we got to ikea, and i broke myself in two hauling furniture around, after which i went to the other green line and found minz on msn and spent spent 5 hours revising my stupid paper .

the day ended with a very warm cocktail party at grace's (no central air) (minz: no parties! do more work! you can only leave for 1 hour!), where i was very, very good and did not have any irish car bombs, just a rather weird tasting whiskey sour mixed by kinjal, and talked to peter about lucid dreaming and met a few of the new incoming students, one of whom asked me if i had "any advice for first-years" (OMG). and then i went home, and clocked in with minz (2 hours 24 minutes), and stared at my tiff files wondering why in blazes i had made them in color when the instructions had explicitly told me not to.

in the morning, i wrapped glasses in newspaper, one by one, and picked up all the dead flies from my windowsill, and stubbed my toe several times. i replied to a lot of e-mail (i don't know why, but everyone seems to want you when you're on a plane and completely unreachable). i discovered to my disgust that TA training (29th - 31st) is not strictly compulsory, but that the professor of the class i'm teaching insists we go anyway.

i went to see the new house. it was madness inside -- a confusion of debris and tools and soda bottles and spackle, and our contractor screaming and screaming, and it's a week (less!) till everyone moves in. i'm given to understand that renovations are like that, sort of in the style of cp's cooking, where everything looks like it's going to explode until about three minutes before dinner, at which point perfect duck a l'orange appears out of seeming nowhere, and so i shall be encouraging and gently goading and generally hopeful. the other housemate came by to take some measurements for his room, and he seemed completely unperturbed by the chaos, which is either affirming or means he trusts me too much.

otherwise: it's very hot, and i'm terribly jet-lagged and putting caffeine into my system in unhealthy amounts. sleep is not for the weak, but this is one time i can't give in; tomorrow is furniture and a billion phone calls, and i have to finish making all the figures for my paper before monday or face the advisor's fiery wrath. it's going to be rough.

year 2

first and foremost, they haven't kicked me out yet, so that's blessing number one.

the main excitement for now is settling into this new house, turning it into a home, and making sure the housemate and the other housemate (there are two now) don't run amok. i have a feeling that this is going to be a very tall order, but we'll see. the whole new drama probably falls under the unfortunate category of "interesting", as in "may you live in interesting times", and can probably also be filed under the heading "growing up (at last)". that drawer has been untouched for a while.

(incid: msn conversation with su-lin last night --
me: (10:28:07 AM) i'm not sure i can look after a house
me: (10:28:27 AM) i'm not grown up yet
su-lin: (10:29:20 AM) i'm starting to realise that growing up is what you do while trying to figure things out
su-lin: (10:29:38 AM) rather like yen and her nus grads and the manuals and the course
su-lin: (10:29:54 AM) you don't grow up first and then do things
su-lin: (10:29:59 AM) does that help?
su-lin: (10:30:00 AM) (:
me: (10:30:08 AM) not if the house burns down
me: (10:30:10 AM) but sort of
su-lin: (10:30:40 AM) think of all the years you would save in the growing up
su-lin: (10:30:47 AM) if it does)

and besides tenants, i have kids this year, and sick people to look after, and an independent study student who had better not be needy. it's funny to think of so many different groups of folks depending on me in one way or another, because i don't think i feel the weight of that responsibility. you always think: if i disappear, the enterprise doesn't fall apart, and it doesn't in the sense that you're more or less replaceable, but it does in the sense that you're here in the present doing things. many people can teach a batch of kids, but i'm just about the only person who can, in penn psychology in fall 2007, teach this batch of kids. and this isn't self-aggrandizing in any way -- i'm very consciously trying to avoid that -- but maybe it's like the de-motivator i gave cp several years ago -- "just because you're necessary doesn't mean you're important" -- but flipped: "just because you're not important doesn't mean you're not necessary"?

---

year 2 is supposed to be the easy year -- no major project due at the end of spring, no terribly important clinical responsibilities. it's the year for making sure you know what the hell you're doing in the way of research methodology (do i?), and generating ideas, and making certain you're capable of coherent original thought. progress without milestones. the scariest kind.

---

i was thinking of this song on the plane, as i thought of year 2:

Take the last train to Clarksville
I'll be waiting at the station
We'll have time for coffee-flavored kisses
And a bit of conversation

i'm not very sure why.

Portland, OR

blogger swallowed my post last night, and so i say a belated goodbye from pdx. coming and going so often gives you perspective on goodbyes, anyway. perhaps there's only one that really matters.

the world is undulating gently -- i've had about 3 hours of sleep in the last 36, and only starbucks is holding me upright.

prata at holland v with wc and m_____, both of whom have left the ex-lab and moved on to far more lucrative things. wc, in particular, is making pots of money for doing practically no work, and spends his time practising the saxophone by the seaside in the hopes of one day bringing jazz to the singaporean masses. it comforts me somewhat to know that these things do occasionally happen to the good guys. i think we're all far too scared off by the generalization that smart people never make pots of money by taking chances, that thinking too hard dooms you somehow to making cash the slow and painful way, and it is good keeping in touch with wc to remind me, in principle at least, that such an actuality need not necessarily come to pass.

a final word on this snippet, after hearing the opinions of people who think the sentiment is bunk: it seems to me that there is a philosophical gap between believers and non-believers that just can't be bridged by argument -- it comes down perhaps to whether you think we're of the earth or of the angels (to put it poetically). and if you can't see your way to my side, then you'll just have to believe that my endeavors are purely onanistic, in which case i hope you're very jealous, because i get to pursue them, and you don't.

to dorcas:

it's a rare thing for me to see friends truly happy, happy in a way that's unadulterated and real, not the cynical half-happiness of intellectual triumph, or pecuniary gain, or moral oneupmanship. i almost hesitate to say anything about it, because any opinion or sentiment surely cheapens the emotion; the penumbra surrounding anything so good must needs be talk of its transience rather than the celebration of its preciousness. so, no, rather than empty wishes of the impossible, i want to wish you this: that the memory of your delight will be as clear today as always, and that you know this happiness truly and deeply, whatever you may feel in the rest of this hope-filled life.

congratulations, and all the best for now and always!

have been trying to make up a lease agreement for the housemate and housemates-to-be by lifting wholesale from the document i signed for my present apartment. this is not as great as it appears. everything sounds cold and litigous, what with threatened evictions and confisactions of property and similar draconian punishment. there's a fine line to be walked -- obviously i don't want to run the place like a penintentiary, but ones interests have to be protected. specific problems: do we charge for washer and dryer use? presumably not. put in a clause about loud noise? i would like to think that this is something that can be sorted out amicably, but perhaps that's too optimistic? the crux of the matter is this: in the utopia i construct in my mind, living together in a house is entirely different from living in separate apartments. specifically, common space breeds common responsibility, and social reciprocity and threatened tit-for-tat in a repeated game is enough to enforce a basic level of cooperation among players. also, to the best of my ability, i'm going to try not to get people off the street (or craigslist) and stick to folks who are minimally friends of friends (of friends). is that totally naive? i don't want to evict anyone! there was a notice taped to the door of my apartment complex when the mother and i returned home from dinner one evening a couple of weeks ago -- someone in the block had defaulted on their rent for 2 months -- and it was just the most humiliating thing, worse than a pig's head, i think, all official and stamped and signed. it's like this: i'm cynical about humanity, but i don't put the people i know into that category. is that an awful failing? and -- even more frightening -- isn't the alternative -- not fully trusting anyone, never thawing the final layer of frost -- isn't that alternative far, far worse?

it's the old sheryl crow thing.

you know

if it makes you happy,
it can't be that bad.
if it makes you happy,
then why the hell are you so sad?

Walter Moers' new book is out...I like the premise, and if it is less desultory than Bluebear I think I'll enjoy it.

big news writ small

the rest of the anxiety, for those who still don't know, came from the denuouement of the long and exhausting tale known as "the mother and i buy a house in west philadelphia". chapters: all the good ones sell like hotcakes, doing this across 12 time zones is not a good idea, and the seller is a bankrupt with no scruples.

i was going to spin the whole (extra-long) yarn for you on here, but frankly i've been too exhausted to write, or do much else during the day besides surf blankly through the web. the upshot, really, is that i'm moving into a new place, with all attendant perks and responsibilities, and will have at least one housemate (known heretofore as The Housemate). drop in if you're in the neighborhood, and i'll mix you a mojito.

for the record

Singapore

back, and internal clock almost reset. it was a shock having to adjust to a different apartment on top of everything else. i've been relegated to a sofa bed in the living room, and go to bed at night with the sound of traffic roaring past on the ECP. the light switches are in odd, unfamiliar places. the sunlight comes into the flat strangely, as if filtered through thick gauze.