Musings.

[sorcyress]

Took a look at deadlines. Turns out only one of my classes is a grad class, and therefore has grades due on the ninth. Everything else has grades due on the fourteenth. This isn't perfect, and I still have to get a lot done in a little time, but it's more time than previously realized. I'm back to the point where I'm thinking maybe I can do this and actually graduate.

And then find a job and an apartment and a job and an apartment¹ and join the real world and plan my summer and all the little tiny things I want to do.

Not gonna lie, part of me wants to just vanish for a length of time. Take a week-month-quarter-year where I officially declare myself to have no obligation to anyone. It would kill my social life, and be cruel to those who love me. It's still a temptation. I just want a break.

I haven't written in a long time. Seriously, if you're on the sexfilter, you've got access to about 80%² of everything I've written these past two or three weeks. I don't know if I can get across how rare that is. Usually there are essays, there are stories, there is BehindtheWalls and 750words and notebooks upon notebooks and just...words. Blessed safe words, to protect me and help me find what I need.

And it's not there right now. My internship is destroying me --classes, being so _busy_ so _overwhelmed_ is destroying me. I love teaching, I love my career, I think I could be so good at this.

Do I have to sacrifice who I was to become who I will be? How can I balance my selves until I find the right spot of who I am? I miss writing -actively, seriously miss it- but when I find myself at a computer, there is all the echoes of What I Should Do that are so much stronger and truer. They choke the words.

And I do not wish to be enslaved to a box anyways.

Hopefully the summer will calm down, and I will find the time to write. I need it, to remain familiar with who and what I am.

I've inadvertently put thought into an OKCupid account, despite the crucial problem that they've no provisions for those of us who aren't just "male" or "female". I hate empty profiles, is all, and in writing things for there, I can write things about myself, and see if I can better identify who I am.

Also, it's the first space on the internet that belongs first to Erik, then to Kat. Oh sure, most spaces belong to Sor, and she is neither one nor the other, but when not Sor, then it more often defaults to the more common name, and gender, and identity. It's nice to give Erik a place of his own sometimes.

Soon I have to teach again, take the lesson I stumbled through and see if I can do a better job. Though in truth, the students know all I'm teaching, I just have to put it together for them. Help them put it together themselves. This is doable.

I've been writing materials for a first day, things to put in my portfolio and show to employers. It's an assignment for school, sure, but it's also actually fun, a good thing to think about. As part and parcel, I have written my first syllabus.

It's a game. Can I get through without ever once providing gender to myself, nor drawing attention to that fact. Currently, I'm winning.

I'm going to get this done. And I'm going to graduate on time. There will be family and food and cheering and then friends and drinks and reminiscence and I will not get a chance to be alone and break down and sob with relief and joy until much too late at night. But that's okay.

It's a thing, and I am going to make it happen. I can do that sometimes.

I am powerful, after all.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: This is not redundancy. I have a couch I'll be sleeping on come early June, I need to find a job for the summer so I can afford an apartment for the summer so I can find a job for the fall so I can afford an apartment in the fall. This is my life right now.

2: Exempting school. And school has probably been 80% of my output the past couple weeks. Yep.

Comments

This Ferret Stream of Consciousness is brought to you by Dr. Pepper

[harena]

And whereas i'd be lying if i said i din't miss you, i still think you need to do what is best for YOU. And no, i don't think you are sacrificing who you are now for who you will be. It's all part of the growth thing. And the intrinsic parts of you will remain as they have always been down there at your core. Ohhey, who knew i could spout such philosophical stuffnthings when hyped on Dr. Pepper? Well, probly you and that actually underscores my point 'cause one of the things that is Totally You which i have had said all along and what will make you a fabulous teacher and what makes you a fabulous friend is that innate ability of yours to See People and know their needs and give forth of yourself for them. And it's the thing that i will always remember of you when you aren't around and the thing i savor and rejoice in when you are around and what makes me love you so very very much and look forward to seeing you when i can and sad when i cannot.

You are the Bestest. ♥

don't stop believing

[woozle]

Much huggitude and stuff. Finding balance -- and deciding when it's okay for something to be out of balance for just a while -- can be very tricky. My advice would be to listen to yourself, but that would probably be almost callously oblivious in its naïve oversimplification, so don't let that push you off course if you've got a course that seems right.

"We can do it! Yes we can!" -- Anna, walking from Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge in 2007

[Insert further improvisational platitudes, invented cliché, and creative redundancy here.]

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Are you sure about that re OKC? 'cause I'm pretty sure I remember a conversation with someone who was saying that OKC was far better than one of the other sites re such things. Maybe it was about being able to switch gender on OKC, but I thought it was more than that. DCMerlin on OKC wrote an admittedly novel length userguide for it; dunno if he comments more about gender there.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I can switch from "male" to "female" or back. Which would only be useful if I were male or female, or swapped between the two. I'm not. I'm neither at best, complex ratios of both at worst.

~Sor

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

complex ratios of both

So your gender has an imaginary component? :-) (I guess if you take the "gender is a social construct" approach to an extreme all gender consists entirely of imaginary components...)

Also, <hug>.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Very glad to hear you have more breathing room than you thought. And your last sentence is quite correct.

[harena.livejournal.com]

And your last sentence is quite correct.

Agree +++++

Just keep breathing.

[herbertinc.livejournal.com]

...it's the most important part.

Things will come. Sometimes life overwhelms. It never stays like that. It frequently overstays its welcome, but things will quiet down.

Breaks are good. You might think about a retreat of some sort (whether formal or otherwise). Two weeks is generally considered the bare minimum to actually be effective (get out of your crazy-routine/mindset and then actually time to reset and refocus). A fortnight would not kill your social life. You need to fulfill your obligations to yourself. Which is sometimes the hardest thing, and sometimes the last thing you actually want to do, but you need to.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

In terms of the "internship is exhausting" thing (and teaching in general) - speaking as someone who watched a beginning teacher find her "sea legs" over the past half-dozen years, the first few years of teaching (internship/student teaching included) are overwhelming and exhausting in many ways, but it really does get easier as you learn your way around your curricula, get the hang of scheduling and balancing things, etc, and develop a repertoire of problem sets, lesson plans, and so on.

After that, though - in R's case, it took a little longer because she switched school systems after 2 years - it seems like it's fairly smooth sailing all in all, with just a hiccup on the first year or so of any given new curriculum that you're asked to teach. With good administrators, that should only be 1 course a year or so. The tough thing about being a new teacher is that you're hit with *all* your courseload as new curricula at once.

Hope that sense of the length of tunnel to the light at the far side helps... I'm sure R. would be happy to talk to you about this stuff if you get a chance to corner her and can resist asking all about the baby.

[tricia868]

I wish you all the success! And hugs. Lots of hugs.

And in the meantime, I'm wondering if you've heard Harry Chapin's 30,000 Pounds of Bananas.

If you haven't, one of its discarded endings goes, "Yes, we have no bananas! We have no bananas today! Yes, we have no bananas! Bananas in Scranton, PA!" Kristen and I have come to the conclusion that there needs to be a rule. A rule in Win, Lose, or Banana, mandating the singing of those few lines by the non-banana holders! (That's totally the rule next time I play, just so you know. Next time Kristen plays, too.)

[tricia868]

I don't have the mental energy to respond to other parts of this post at the moment. The painkillers haven't kicked in yet. *more hugs, though*

I Can't Imagine What It Would Be

[dhs.livejournal.com]

... but if there is anything I can do to help with this, let me know & I'll do my best to do it.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

That break/reset sort of thing is why I like festivaling with Nathen so much. It's a completely disruptive and different and foreign experience from my normal.