As "I" become the world...

“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been, seen, done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone, everything whose being-in-the-world affected, was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone, which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each "I", everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world.”

-- Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

Yo se que aun estoy a tiempo

La luz ya no alcanza

No quieras caminar sobre el dolor

Descalza

Un Angel te cuida

Y puso en mi boca la verdad para mostrarte la salida.

de Camila

This is the sound that's made...

Life, for now, I've come to fear
You've dropped me off and left me here
With nothing here to find my way
But the light you take as you pull away

Far ahead the brush is moving
There's others here and good still proving
Nothing's wrong, it's in my mind
Nothing's wrong and I'll be fine

(lyrics by the funny and charming dave barnes)

On Memory...many thanks to my students this semester

I've been thinking about memory a lot these past six months. Last semester, in my class on the Global South, we read texts that triggered memories I needed to face. Or rather, these texts made me realize that I needed to face certain memories in a different way. And it has been hard. Memories can't be swept under the rug; unfortunately, that's the way I've dealt with the most troubling ones. I feel a need to forget. But if I believe that the past is always present, and that my past is the foundation for the construction of my subjectivity--a glimpse into the question, "who am I?"--then perhaps there must also be a need to confront the past. I'm working on it.

I gave my students a writing prompt early in the semester: You have suddenly been given enhanced brain power and you can remember everything that's ever happened to you nearly at the same time. What do you remember that causes you to change how you behave currently? What are some lessons you learned that you promptly forgot?

They have phenomenal responses. Their writing has meaning and resonance in my life. It reminds me that no matter how much we focus on race, class, gender, and other categories that continually separate and/or demarcate us, we share humanity. For me, memory is perhaps the most salient thread about and for humanity. With that, here are some things my students shared:

"Though I may wish to promptly forget them [bad memories], I resolve to build upon them."

"The power of memory is vastly underestimated. Although some believe the past is the past for a reason and it should not be brought up in the present. I believe that the past is where our greatest adventures and lessons lay."

"I may never forget the bad memories of the past but I can overshadow them with good."

"Memories are more fickle than snowflakes...It is through clarity of the past that we strive for a better future."

"My behavior and disposition is a product of what I was taught by the people in my life."

"Being able to remember everything is a frightening thought."

Why do we write?

We...write to heighten our own awareness of life...We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection...We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it...to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth...to expand our world, when we feel strangled, constricted, lonely...When I don't write I feel my world shrinking. I feel I lose my fire, my color.

--Anais Nin

The Diary of Anais Nin, v. 5

20 Ways to Relieve Stress. I need this.

1. Work it off. Blow off steam physically with activities.
2. Talk out your worries. It helps to share concerns with someone you trust and respect. Sometimes another person can help you see a new side to your problem and, thus, a new solution.
3. Say "no" more often. Refuse inappropriate requests and turn down invitations you really don't have time for.
4. Learn to accept what you cannot change. If the problem is beyond your control at this time, try to your best to accept it until you can change it.
5. Relax your standards. Doing everything perfectly is not only unnecessary--it's boring. Life's a lot easier when you ignore a little dirt, take shortcuts when appropriate, let the grass grow a bit higher.
6. Find the humor in it. Every dilemma has something funny about it if you look for it.
7. Change your perspective. Instead of worrying, "what will happen if...", ask, "so what?"
8. Avoid self-medication. Speaks for itself.
9. Get enough sleep and rest. Ditto.
10. Get help with the jobs you hate. Barter or pay for the help if you need to; it's worth it.
11. Establish a serene place of your own. Even if it's just a comfortable chair in a quiet corner.
12. Count your blessings. Rarely is anything so bad that it couldn't be worse, and it helps to remember that. Appreciate what's going well.
13. Balance work and play. Amen.
14. Take time out. Breathe deeply, stretch your muscles, nap, meditate, anything.
15. Do something for others. Sometimes when you're distressed, you concentrate too much on yourself and your situation. Get your mind off yourself.
16. Take one thing at a time. It's self-defeating to tackle all your tasks at once. Set some aside and work on the most urgent.
17. Unclutter your life. Anything you do to simplify your life helps reduce stress.
18. Give in once in a while. IF you find the source of your stress is other people, try giving in instead of fighting and insisting you're always right. Other might begin to give in, too.
19. Reward yourself after stressful activities. Stop for a special lunch or treat, relax with a favorite tv show or book.
20. Make yourself available. When you're bored, stressed or feeling left out, go where there are people. Sitting alone can get frustrating.

Classrooms

"Classrooms can be places where learners attempt to reduce knowledge to that which can dazzle or deceive. Too often, learners are more concerned with the appearance of knowing than with the genuine investigation which will enable one to come to know, deeply, a subject and our world. In our antiquated educational system, teaching has been reduced to and cheapened into a privatized delivery of facts and data. Classrooms are too often places of violence where questioning has more to do with conquest than inquisition." (Nancy Lynne Westfield)

The date is approaching--August 24, 2010. That's when I'll stand in front of my 19 freshmen students for the first time. As teacher. Instructor. Professor? No, I'm not there yet. They can just call me Maria. I don't know exactly why I have written that I'll "stand in front" of them; I guess that's just a metaphor for me to fulfill my role as teacher while, in turn, they can fulfill their roles as students. But maybe I won't stand anywhere.

I've been thinking a lot about the kind of teacher I will be. I know I have goals and objectives and ideas--all of the things that I want to be. The longer I ponder these things I realize that, despite my deliberate intentions and reflections weeks (months?) before I start to teach English 101, things are going to be out of my control. I firmly believe that I'll learn more than my students will, and this totally gives me goosebumps. But I love learning, and while the prospect of trying to guide 19 young minds through the writing process and hopefully leaving them with at least one or two words of wisdom is outright frightening, I'm very much looking forward to it. I'll be reading and writing like never before. I'll leave comments on papers in the margins with a green or purple pen--I've learned to stay away from the treacherous red ink. I'll have office hours, and, chances are, no one will come to them. I'll have to get to the classroom early to set up the technology because, let's face it, if you're not using YouTube or some kind of new media to teach, you are behind on the times. (Needless to say that I will be having my students use YouTube for their first unit on pop culture!) And I'm sure there will be other numerous things that I've not yet anticipated.

I've heard that the class syllabus is supposed to say a lot about the instructor. Accordingly, the words on my syllabus were chosen carefully. It's the (initial) space wherein I can adamantly announce my teaching objectives until I start to deviate from my initial plans because, as a first-time teacher, it's a given that I will deviate. And here I'm not referring to the content of the course--homework, feeders, unit projects, oral presentations, etc. I'm concerned with the kind of teaching philosophy that is embedded in my syllabus; this is why the words are important. I know I sound really strict, but I don't like that word. Ideally, I want my students to think of me as demanding? Why? Because I want to teach them how to write and how to do it well. I want to be demanding because I care. And I think to be demanding is also to demand a lot from myself: time, energy, time, energy, time.

I would hate my classroom to become a space wherein the banking concept of education manifests itself; that would be horrifying. Ultimately, I know that, for some students, this will be the case, but I will do my best to fight against it. I've had amazing teachers and professors, and there will always be someone that is (hyper)critical and negative, sometimes for the sake of being so. My goal is to not let that someone (if I should encounter a student like that in my class) influence anyone else. Negativity and pessimism can be fatal in the classroom. And, for me, the classroom is a place of meaning; wherein the student can choose to be mediocre only if he/she wants to be.