"I don't know why we are doing this" - Jacques Derrida

I was talking with the eloquent and observant Heather Blom while I was cleaning my desk today and came across an old reading pack from my undergrad with this statement of Derrida's in bold. It was a poignant and almost cinematically choreographed moment. Heather was talking about all the expectations being thrust upon our generation and how they are being consistently abandoned and disappointed. We are the feebly striving generation of decline. Why are we doing this?

After an undergrad which had us continuously propelling upwards to what we assumed were prosperous and promising futures, we are finding ourselves disappointed and, probably worse, disappointing.

I am single, living alone with my increasingly aggressive tabby, struggling to contrive a thesis which I am quite clearly not qualified to be undertaking, trying to stay fit, trying to eat well, trying to keep my laundry basket and kitchen sink from over flowing, and not even trying to make the friends which I am so plainly and painfully without here in this strange city. I don't know how to do it all. I am expected to be domesticated, educated, socially adept, athletic, health conscious, a competent correspondent, fashionable, cultured and well rested.

I feel like Stevie Smith's narrator in my long-time favourite poem;

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

I know there is nothing less sympathetic than the winging of an upper middle class darling struggling to achieve perfect before she even dares to compare herself to the staggering depression experienced by this ill-fated poet. I feel like that is the irony of my generations Grecian tragedy; to be so entirely blessed with opportunity and completely unable to achieve anything with it, least of all contentedness. I am Alexandra.

I don't want to be obnoxiously meloncholic and narcissistic. I want to be able to do it all without self pity.

I'll work on it

Limbo

And not the hilarious party game which I have never had the pleasure of playing.

I'm sure this is how Dante imagined it

I'm talking about that level in Dante's Inferno where nothing is fucking happening. Just me, chillin' with Homer, Euclid and Socrates.

I had an alarming meeting with my thesis supervisor last week. She wanted me to drop a class and do a Directed Readings with her instead. The class I was supposed to drop I had been told - and directly, I might add, in an e-mail from the History Graduate Department Secretary - was mandatory. Oh guess what: nope. So I had been struggling through this irrelevant and obnoxious class for no reason. Great. So I go to switch things around - I missed the add/drop period by  ONE DAY. So I have been trying to run around and get all the forms signed I need to, write the letters I need to, pay the 100$ I apparently owe for "my" negligence.

That was headache one, which is basically resolved.

Headache two: "Oh, I really don't think you can do your thesis on German history if you don't speak any German..." Uh, ok. Well, they let me in, and I had said I didn't speak any. So great. Thanks McGill. I think I will just go and shit in the middle of your green painted campus (seriously, wtf? painting your asphault with green leaves and foot prints does not convince me of your commitment to environmental sustainability. It convinces me that you are a bunch of posturing sycophants. If I vandalize with green spray paint and streamers, am I a good Samaritan? Blow me).

So I am only really registered in one class right now, and, as far as I'm aware, I don't have a thesis to work on. It is all very frustrating.



On the brighter side, I have been going to yoga again. Necessary in light of the irritating bureaucracy that is McGill administration. Namaste Socrates, Namaste.

The Greater of Two Evils

watching the Biggest Loser while eating chocolate chips and peanut butter

OR

a candlelit bath, listening to Twilight audiobooks

my cats will be my boyfriends...

I am: A Teaching Assistant

This new addition to my personal biography is hilarious. I am TAing an American History class. I never took American History in high school, and I took one course in University. God love the competence of McGill University. What a leap of faith they're making.

My responsibilities include marking weekly reading summaries (which means I have to do the reading? Aw shit...), marking exams and essays, and heading up 2 tutorials (or conferences, as they are so loftily referred to at McGill) once a week. I am responsible for teaching a class, essentially. This is utter madness. Madness, compounded by the fact that I received the position late, so attended my first class on Monday, therefore missing two weeks of material and my first week's worth of tutorials. My fellow TAs took my missed tutorials for me, and handed me the stack of reading responses I was responsible for grading on Sunday. I didn't even receive the course readings until Monday. One of my students wrote "women were clearly inferior and thus wanted the vote." Check?

I have my first tutorial today. I did the readings for the class this morning.

My brother suggested I bring beer.

I am considering it...

5 Senses Friday No. II

Feeling:

Very hungover, and disappointed with the world today. Law & Order was cancelled, my rugby girls played without me at Mt A tonight, Rich Cronin is gone, and Heather Blom is not in my bed watching Twilight with me.

Smelling:

That starchy smell of pasta cooking.

Hearing:

"The Girl on T.V." in tribute to the lost Lyte Funky One

Tasting:

Bile. It has not been a fun day.

Seeing:

a very busy day tomorrow after this squandered, bed ridden one

R.I.P. Rich.

Thanks Mom and Dad

For buying me a removable shower head. Great end to a rough and tumble day.

So there has been another entry hiatus. I apologize. This one was preventable. My mind has been rather occupied with the stressful reality of a knee injury, and I was not quite prepared to post anything about it and thus make it real. That said, knee injury and all, I played my first game representing McGill. All is well, and so I feel safe to reveal that in last week's intersquad game I very likely tore my meniscus. The ironic and tragic karmic link between my best friend and grave robbing ACL pilferer Heather Blom remains strong, despite the distance between us. Not that I would liken our lots, since with my tear I am still able to continue my season. Thank God. I don't know how I would do in a new city with so few friends, such daunting classes and no rugby for respite.

I promise again to be more diligent. Tomorrow I have a game and perhaps will be hosting my very darling friend Melina for some of the week. Hi-jinx will ensue.

Freon = Pudding

My parents left today. They did so much to help get my apartment set up - it is going to be amazing when I can actually drag my act together and finish organizing it. They also kept me well fed and better liquored than I would have otherwise chosen to be during Training Camp (yes, we are still practicing every night). Last night, after sharing 2 bottles of wine 4 ways, my dad drove rather aggressively home - driving like a "Quebecer" in his words. "It's one of those Quebec things that just happens," explained my brother;" aggressive driving, talking like you're trying to simultaneously trying to spit and swallow, and poutine."

"Poutine does not just happen," Papa Black exclaimed, with more than a subtle note of disgust. This sound bite made me laugh out loud the rest of the night.


In addition to being helpful on many home fronts, my mother also did something entirely unhelpful. While trying to help defrost my freezer, my mum stabbed the Freon line in my fridge with a screw driver. I have no fridge, and my house is full of noxious poison, but I did get to eat pudding for dinner, so it's basically a wash.