Holy shit, is this guy a dingbat.

I am on break in my Philosophy, Culture, and Identity class and I am extremely unimpressed with the prof.

All he has done us babble, ramble, and wander off on tangents. I am having trouble believing there was ever a point, I get a distinct feeling that he had absolutely no plan for today’s class and us just winging it.

Plus get is a huge fan of Kant, and Kant was an idiot whose only qualification as philosopherwas the ability to say stupid things in fancy enough language
that it makes stupid people feel smart for thinking like stupid people.

I can only hope that things get better when the course itself starts. I assume he will have a lesson plan at that point.

(—)

Now I am on break in Creative Writing. Looks like it is going to be wacky and fun. In a minute, I will be writing a postcard to my future self. I will try not to be too judgemental and pre-guilt trippy. Like, not too “I sure hope that you have finished your degree and made something of Yourself!

(—)

Home now. As I did yesterday, I am writing this blog entry before supper instead of after, so that things are still sharp in my memory.

Creative Writing was fun, except for the very end. At the end, we were supposed to “catch the eye” of a fellow student and read bits of what I had written in the previous exercise. That is something I cannot do. I managed to do it once because I only thought we had to do it once, but when I learned we were supposed to do it over and over with different students, I had a full blown social anxiety attack and had to sit down.

That ended up working out, because then people approached me, and I am fine with that. It was the whole “catch someone’s eye” thing that threw me. That took my already high level of social anxiety with this exercise and multiplied it by the sudden increase of difficulty times the sudden increase in social variables and the result was TILT. Operation override. System crash. Must reboot.

It was a different kind of anxiety attack than I am used to, as well. It felt like sudden stabs with an icicle in various parts of my body. Nomrally my anxiety attacks are more of a general thing – depression, self-loathing, fear, all happening at once and as a single thing. This felt very specific. Almost like an allergic reaction. It was very odd.

I think that means it was primarily anxiety and nothing else. Which is progress, in a way. It means that while the anxiety is still there, the depression and self-loathing connected to it have retreated, and that makes the anxiety seem more like something I can overcome with repeated exposure.

The key, I think, is to simply ignore awkward moments instead of internalizing them deeply, like I do. Take, for example, the event I just described. Part of me, an unhealthy part, views that incident as crushing and humiliating and blah blah blah.

But it wasn’t. It was unpleasant for me, but I ended up getting the job done anyhow, and after class, I explained to the prof that I have depression with social anxiety and that sometimes there will be things I just can’t do.

At first she seemed sympathetic, but then she said something about how this was a participatory class and I would have to do certain things. But then she listed them, like getting up and moving around, reading things aloud, and participating in discussions, and none of them were a problem for me.

She had no way of knowing what a strikingly atypical social anxiety case I am. I have no problem with a lot of the assertiveness type things other social anxiety victims find hard. I have no problem speaking my mind, participating in conversations, or arguing my case.

Just try and stop me.

But throw something at me like having to catch people’s eye and I am helpless.

Oh, and she and I also got into it a little over that whole “abstract versus concrete” bullshit because I still don’t get it. It’s can’t be as stupid as it sounds, can it?

When I brought it up, the first thing she said was “it just seems like you are looking to start an argument’, which is the exact same thing Nicola, my creative writing prof from last semester, said when I got into it with her.

It must be something they are trained to say when a man seems to be escalating. And I often forget that I am a large male human who projects very well, both vocally and emotionally, and I can seem very scary to people who don’t know me and know what I kitten I am.

Anyhow, this whole “use concrete language based in the five senses not abstract language” thing is received dogma now, and it honestly doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. If we were limited to our five senses, we would be primitive creatures like clams or barnacles.

But we, like all complex lifeforms, have minds. And what goes on between our ears is abstract. We were talking about a funeral and she was saying you shouldn’t call the deceased “dead”, you should say things like “was still” or “was pale” or “had dark lips (??)”.

To my mind, that just leaves the reader thinking “but are they dead? Why are they being so coy about it?”.

I asked her what to say instead of “His death concerned me” and she didn’t have an answer. I wish I had asked her what death smelled like.

They really seem to be fixated on smells.

Oh, and when I mentioned that I had the same argument with Nicola in the previous semester, the prof said “Well if Nicola said it too, maybe you should consider it!”.

I didn’t say anything at the time. But later, in a case of esprit d’escalier, I thought of replying “Ask Nicola what she thinks of my writing. ”

Because she thinks I am awesome.

Anyhow, in the future, I will remember to keep the anger or annoyance banked and to ask questions in a friendly, non-judgy manner.

After all, it produces better results. And I am all about the results.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.