housewarming

i was on campus in the afternoon when one of the singaporean undergrads (BONDED) who i hadn't talked to in over a year came up to me and invited me for a belated zhong qiu dessert thingummy in one of the freshmen dorms. it clashed with my housewarming party, so i had to say no, but he wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise for about five minutes, and went on and on about the various sweets they were preparing and how i absolutely had to be there because it was going to be so so awesome. it kind of surprised me that i would still be wanted there (and so badly) -- surely a solid year of determinedly not attending SSA activities should have inured them to my absence -- but apparently the mentality is 'once singaporean, always singaporean', or something to that effect, so perhaps the invites will continue in perpetuity. i might even have gone too, if i had been available, and there had been or nee.

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i worried a lot that there wouldn't be enough to drink, but people were good and brought beer and wine and that concern was laid to rest early in the evening. i worried also that we wouldn't have enough space, but a magical thing always seems to happen at parties where folks diffuse into unexpected places in gatsby-esque fashion. almost all the first and second-years showed up, and jared and syl and kinjal and co., and the other housemate's lab people, and a couple of random people who i'd never seen before. i was actually rather gratified that the random people showed up -- the sign of a successful do, to me, is when the host doesn't know everyone. it seemed that a lot of them were named emily.

everyone got the tour, and i went upstairs and downstairs 20 times, but it wasn't tiresome and everyone was most impressed. it was good seeing the place with fresh eyes, reminding myself that the house is nice, a notion that has kind of gotten lost over the last few months. and not just that, but to hear, articulated by other people, that this was a tremendous undertaking that could have ended very badly at numerous points along the way, was something i badly needed.

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at half-past midnight, i found myself out front with kinjal and pavel nursing a screwdriver and reciting the walrus and the carpenter, and comparing bulgaria and singapore and how far each has fallen.

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i was going to end this entry with something kind of personal and honest, but i've changed my mind because i sense it's something i might regret. here's a photo of two drunk people instead.

"dessert in the courtyard"

was, in actuality, an elderly couple with a packet of oreos, waiting for the harvest moon to rise. they had lived in west philadelphia during the truly bad times, the days of crack babies and drive-by shootings, moved to israel for a year, then center city during the 90s, and then back into UC after they retired. she audits a class at temple (greek and roman mythology), he likes fine dining, they both go for art house cinema and shakespeare in the park. it seems so odd that they would have chosen to retire on our block on spruce street, but perhaps i'm being altogether too cynical -- perhaps this is gentrification reified; maybe we truly are in the winter of university city's discontent. elderly people in the city always seem especially friable, and sitting with them in the gathering dark, i did find myself thinking that they should not really be out so late, that they should be indoors watching the history channel and sipping herbal tea. but no, i reimagined context, and suddenly it was the most natural thing in the world -- a cross-generational, cross-cultural encounter in the heart of a neighborhood in flux, our own small contribution to the re-imagination of a gentler university city, our prayer that the violence and misery, once so prevalent, will very soon be a thing of the past.

before i let go of the subject, i'd like to make one general observation on what we've suffered through over the past few months: that bullshit comes in grades, and your response to it has to be calibrated accordingly. in my life to this point, what has been fed me -- by teachers, the singapore government -- has been bullshit with insight, purposive if you will, crafted. for example: a country, any country, is worth defending. "to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality". if you do well in school, your happiness is secure. and i'm not saying that you should react in any particular way to this -- i guess most of it is benign -- but getting angry would probably be a legitimate response, thus suffragettes, we shall not be moved. if the bullshit is exploitative, and if you rise to the level where you can see it for what it is, then indignation and outrage are surely the way to go.

but then you have your low-grade bullshit, the kind that follows not logic nor direction, unpremeditated, bare-faced and desultory, spouted by fools trying to be wise. and much as you want to become angry when you get hurt by it, the trick is to see this: that it's beyond your control, that there's no mens rea -- you accomplish just as little as getting angry with a tree for falling on your car. there's no sense railing against what cannot be changed. and -- let's face it -- there are crooks out there, but for every one crook there are a hundred stupid people, a hundred people who don't even realize what they're doing when they stab you, who will blithely wreck your life and not even be aware. and there's no point getting angry, because then they've won.

your options? (1) get very rich. (2) take sweet, dispassionate revenge.

and that's the last i have to say about that.

i find myself very sleepy; it is my body responding, i think, to coming down from months of chronic stress. i slept 9 hours last night, and 2 more in the afternoon, and i'm still looking forward very much to going to bed.

the work finished today, and the relief is enormous. the housemate and i went to the mall, and i felt encouraged enough to buy things i had been holding out on -- a cookie pan, and a welcome mat (GO AWAY).

we started this project almost a year ago, and despite everything, i feel -- notwithstanding anything that may happen in the near or distant future -- i feel today that it was all worth it. not just because having high ceilings and a brand-new kitchen and nice housemates is wonderful, but also because just by itself self-efficacy is worth its weight, and since winter last year i've been reaping it, day by day, in not insignificant amounts.

first client

it's a tragedy that a person can go so awfully misdiagnosed for so many years -- can see numerous doctors in multiple hospital departments and still not find out what's wrong with him. you know, people laugh at psychologists -- i laugh at those in our profession a lot -- but when something so glaringly obvious -- even to my inexperienced eye -- gets lost in the shuffle, i may have to upgrade the value of what we're doing. 40 years of waste because no one could spend two hours with the patient and spot the pattern, connect the dots. and this was someone smart, and likable, someone who would have made a success of himself if he had just gone to someone who could sit him down and say: look, you have such-and-such a condition, and you need meds. it's slightly heartbreaking, and this is just the beginning.

self-doubt

I concede: standing in front of a class for an hour-and-a-half and being in charge is difficult. The stress equation I had in mind was:

Anxiety [teaching] = Anxiety [giving a presentation] - [undergrads are not really that smart] - [I'm the one grading your test papers].

No. The stress of standing in front of a classroom is qualitatively different from the stress of giving a talk, and I've pinned down why -- it's because I'm desperate for the kids to like me, and the difference between that and simply wanting respect because I have a handle on the material is enormous. The feeling must be gotten rid of! If there ever were a time for high ideals, surely this is it, passing the torch on to the next generation, the teacher represents the institution not herself etc. Or is that misguided? Is it that being liked is integral to the classroom dynamic -- not liked by each individual necessary, but by the vox populi?

And science classes are tough to TA -- when you ask a question there's little room for discussion, you get it right or wrong, and no one wants to be wrong. On top of that, I'm not always sure I'm right -- it's been a long time since I considered neuroscience at the level of neurons and systems -- and so whenever anyone raises their hand to ask a question I go all tingly in case it's the one I should know how to answer but don't. All in all, it's more stress than I bargained for, and I already have to set exam questions which is going to take me all bloody night.

so yes, you've been DYING to see this fantasia that i've purportedly moved into, and now you will get ONE photo, of my room, and the rest in good time. i live down the stairs from the front door; there's an adjoining bathroom to the left, and the curtains you see on the right are in front of a pair of french doors that opens out to a small yard (in which, hopefully, i'll be able to coax flowers to grow in the spring).

Re: routine -- how splendid that the fall TV season is once again upon us.

i can't believe it's been a week since i've blogged, and an eventful week at that. i *think* i'm almost back in business. having to wear three new hats -- teacher, therapist and superintendent -- all at once has proven almost overwhelming -- and this isn't even taking into consideration the nightmare voyage our contractor has put us through, but i think i'm beginning to see, for the first time in many months, a glimmer of hope that the chaos is coming to an end, that the anaesthetic of routine will soon begin to kick in.

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the mother has come and gone without seeing the job complete. we have gone over the deadline by a week now, but all the major work is done, and the rest is touching up and making the place livable. well, almost all of it -- upsetting things include a non-flushing toilet (mine), a door that won't close and needs planing (mine), and a shower stall that is being assembled at a snail's pace. i am hoping that the final screw will be turned on wednesday, but we shall see. i absolutely promise that there will be pictures once it's all over.

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the housemates have been most stoic through all of this. medals all around.

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on the therapy front: i have my first client, and will be seeing him next wednesday. the dread that i felt all last semester has been eclipsed by my other current worries, so for better or worse i'm going to go into this session having not ruminated about all the possible ways in which i could fail. i'm not very sure how much i can eventually say on this blog without committing any ethical violations, but i'll see what i can manage.

the mother is in town till next friday, and i'm exhausted (not related), too exhuasted to give you a blow-by-blow. i will say this -- i've been eating well, which counts for something, and so far have sustained only minor physical injuries.

Baskerville and Rowlf, in The Muppet Show 1x06:

[???]* corner
Foggy night
Passing crowd
Electric light

German chef
Can of ten
Sausages are
Boiled within

Yeller dog
Nearby prowls,
Smells a sausage
Softly growls

Clumsy man
Wooden leg
Upsets the boiler
With his peg

Spills the sausage
Scatters wurst
Yeller dog
He gets there first

Grabs the sausage
Splits the fog
It's another case of
Dog eat dog

* I couldn't find these lyrics online anywhere, and can't make head or tail of what Baskerville sings here. Really, it's the performance that makes this brilliant, and I'm mostly posting this to remind myself what episode it's in.

BUT -- we're moved in, which is big, and i'm not sleeping on the floor any more. once i get my act together a bit more, there will be pictures.

we got back into the house on monday, labor day, and starting the process of trying to haul furniture up- and downstairs without putting huge holes through the new drywall. a lot of stuff had to go over the bannisters, which was kind of like repeated shoulder presses now that i'm not in exquisite pain and can think about it.

not done:
bathrooms
back yard fence
roof

saturday -- yesterday -- started promisingly enough. the hardwood floor fellows -- three indistinguishable vietnamese guys in their late 20s -- appeared on my doorstep at 8 in the morning and kicked me out of the house so they could start sanding the floors and be done by noon. i moseyed down to bucks and grabbed a coffee and a rather cold and unappetizing croissant, and then went to meet grace and kinjal and the housemate who were headed down to ikea for a furniture run. (incid: they don't have ikea in hawaii, or target, which i find incredibly bizarre. those renegades! i bet dubya doesn't realize hawaii is part of america.) the mall was packed with rich penn undergrads throwing wads of cash in the air and watching the bills float to earth like confetti on the fourth of july, and fussing parents with enveloping archangel's wings. welcome to one small handcrafted section of my own personal hell.

ihop, then back to the house where i was hoping we could sit down for a while, but the floor guys had decided to be all gung-ho and start the refinishing ahead of schedule, which meant the place was a poison gas chamber and no one could go inside. at almost exactly the same time it dawned on me that the housemate and i were out on the streets for the night, the other housemate showed up with his parents and a trailer full of barang in tow. we had a little monty python moment out on the sidewalk where grace and kinjal and the housemate and the other housemate and the other housemate's parents and i all introduced ourselves to each another while trying not to choke on the acetone smell that had now started permeating the entire compound because of the industrial-sized fans the vienamese guys had turned on to ventilate the house, and then we decided that at the very least we should try and get the other housemate's furniture into my room (downstairs) so that they wouldn't have to drive the trailer all across town again. this meant Being Busy, always a good thing in times of awkwardness, and i put on my very best "I'M IN CONTROL AND KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON" demeanor, and yelled at the floor guys, and called the contractor and yelled at him for no real good reason, and bristled like a boar, and carried very heavy boxes up and down stairs, and nearly threw out my back. this was a rather impressive display, even for me, and everyone left happy, even the other housemate who had to squat illegally at his old apartment last night without a bed.

this only left the problem of not having anywhere to live for the night. fortunately, kinjal was nice enough to offer up her futon bed (god bless her soul), and her place doesn't become truly crazy until today, when three more people descend on her looking for sanctuary. the floor guys finish today, and hopefully the air in the place will be breathable by tonight, or else i may have to get kicked out to jared's or something. i console myself with the fact that this is very close to where the madness ends (although it's also very close to where school and eight billion responsibilities begin, but that's another worry for another day).