Posts Tagged: graduate school

teaching — 2 Comments
22
Jun 07

That Nap Was A Killer

I went home yesterday afternoon and has a killer nap. I don’t mean I had a great nap that gets me rested for the rest of the day, but I crashed around 4 in the afternoon and slept until midnight. I haven’t collapsed like this since my final year in graduate school. Back them, I was doing coursework, tutoring, a TA assignment, and an internship at a local community college. Somehow, I managed to to this using public transportation (not a small feat in San Diego). There was one Saturday when I was getting a haircut and I kept falling asleep in my chair. When I walked home, I went to bed in the late afternoon, only to sleep for fourteen hours.

My story now? I have an early class at 7:30 am and I’ve been waking up anytime between 3:00am to 5:00am to get ready. It’s always easy to take care of some work the earlier I wake up. It’s a combination of time management and getting to sleep on time. I’m not truly a morning person yet. I’m still accustomed to being up until midnight, and 2:00am is late for me. However, I’ve got to get used to it. The morning classes won’t go away anytime soon.

I’ll go to back to bed for a couple of hours. I don’t want to say I’ve been up since 12:00am.

creative writing / fiction — No Comments
28
Apr 07

MFA Graduation Readings for Abbie Berry, Kimball Taylor, & Tony Shafer

OK, I didn’t get to see Bjork or go to Cochella, but I did get to hear Abbie Berry read some of her work. This was part of an MFA rite of passage–the graduation reading. This one was held at the Hardy Memorial Tower, at the end of the Campanile Mall at San Diego State University. The event was supposed to start at 7pm, but started sometime after 8pm due to some technical difficulties in setting up. I saw some people I knew from my MFA past, and a lot I didn’t know at all. Joanne Meschery, a very popular visiting writing professor, gave the introductions once the event got started.

I’ve known Abbie a couple of years before getting into SDSU’s graduate writing program. Her writing centers around love and desire, definitely a Marguerite Duras influence. Given that comparison, the rhythm of her writing is her own and that was apparent in a very strong version of her story “Topography.” Abbie’s reading, overall, was wonderful.
I’ve never met Kimball Taylor or had any previous exposure to his writing, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. This guy is good, and I enjoyed his Texas Street story immensely. It just sounds too strange to be true.
Tony Shafer delivered a quirky, rambling multi-media presentation with a flair for the dramatic. He was accompanied by a few of his friends, who read various monologues, dictionary definitions, and bits of trivia. One reader was in the audience, while the others read from the balcony in the back of the lecture hall. Tony also used PowerPoint slides to illustrate points in his story. A bit like Kenji Siratori, but there was more story.
Overall, a very enjoyable evening. I’ll be looking out for these three in print in the future.

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27
Feb 07

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 19)

Last time in this series, I discussed my own 9/11 craziness and explored Professor Joseph K’s “Madness in Literature” course. It’s been a while since I’ve written any installments for this series, so here’s a link to the introduction if you want to read up. This latest entry is the story of a friend I met in the program.

Liza Radley
If any of my MFA experiences were like Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or Cabaret, then Liza Radley was my Sally Bowles. She had that classic gamine appeal, somewhere between Audrey Hepburn and Liza Minelli*. Artsy and free spirited without having the affected persona that often accompanies those traits, Liza commanded attention nonetheless. Though small in stature, she was outgoing, openly passionate, and loudly opinionated, which made her a memorable presence as a poet.

I met Liza at the first or second week mixer for new MFA’s. It is difficult to remember everything about someone at those meetings. I also met her on the bus ride home from one of my fiction workshops and on a bus evacuation of the campus during 9/11, but neither of those meetings had much impact on me. Even though she was never my girlfriend, a date had the most impact on me in getting to know her as my friend. Since Liza was new to town, she often took new friends to Hipps, a notorious drag queen nightclub was in the district where she lived. Somewhere between my time at Professor K. office doing journal work and her time at the poetry journal office, we agreed to meet at Hipps at the end of the week. I put on my favorite iridescent shirt and boots, while Liza showed up in a simple red chemise. Oddly, some blonde women who looked like they were from the more conservative eastern part of the county thought Liza was a drag queen. We both found that perception strange and amusing, and something about conspiratorially watching the drag queens humiliate selected patrons was fun. After Hipps had its run, we went down to a British styled pub, where Liza flirted with an Irish bartender who knew nothing of Seamus Heaney. At the end of the night and our drinks, we walked arm and arm for a couple of more blocks and crashed at her apartment. We had breakfast at a Russian restaurant a block north of her place, which was good for our hangovers.

I soon started to hang out with Liza and Alexandra, a gifted, but conservative poet who pursued having a close friendship with Liza. Occasionally in the orbit of the Liza/Alexandra nucleus were Brandon, the mid-western surfer poet who sounded had more of a southern California accent than I, and Gabriel, a textbook Gen-X type who always had something sarcastic to say about everyone. There were a few times where Alexandra, Brandon, Gabriel, and I hung out and played cards and drank lots of red wine. Then there was the time where we went to Monster Trucks at the stadium. Liza made spontaneous plans to go to to the event and got Alexandra and Gabriel on board. I got the message late, so I bought a ticket from a scalper and tried to find them once there. If I had a cell phone, locating them would have been easy. However, I spent an hour canvassing a few levels, and finally met my friends by chance. I described it as a “happy accident,” which Gabriel would make fun of for a while. That night, I also met Topher, her on and off boyfriend of the past few years who would become central to the drama of her life in the next year.

Before Topher was back in her life, she dated a nerdy guy from the Essay Composition department. I don’t remember if I’ve met him on any outings, but I do remember hanging out with him for a bit at the Halloween party at her boyfriend’s house. Liza wore a small, tight black dress, a cowboy hat and boots, transforming the outfit with spiderwebs and Arachne on her skin, done with eyeliner. My skirt was longer, of course. I had a Chinaman’s cheongsam and I wore that. Some other people, such as Brandon dressed up as an Australian outbacker and Gabriel in a priest’s outfit, were present. There was one guy, Hosea, whose form-fitting skeleton costume highlighted the shape of his ass, which I kept looking at throughout the entire party. For a while afterwards, I would refer to him having a nice ass if I couldn’t or didn’t want to remember his name. Liza and her boyfriend retreated at one point from the party to his room, where they had loud sex that could be heard by everyone in the living room. They would date for a short while more, though the Halloween party is the last time I can concretely remember them being together.

Since Brandon and I were quick friends and we were in the “Teaching Composition” course together, we would often talk about our mutual crush on Liza Radley. Mine was the gay man’s type, which doesn’t go anywhere and is often expressed in an admiration and friendship, while Brandon’s was very strong. Of course, I had an attraction to Brandon, making this a “bizarre love triange” of sorts.

After the Christmas break, with Liza Radley, Brandon, and Alexandra back in town, there was a small get-together. I met up with Liza, Alexandra, and Gabriel at a Japanese restaurant for dinner and the party later moved to Liza’s apartment with card playing, conversation, and copious amounts of red wine. Brandon crashed the party, drank wine out of a Pyrex measuring cup, and took his shirt off and gave me a lapdance while I commented on how sexy he was. When the party was over, Alexandra went home and I got a ride with Gabriel. However, Brandon remained, and then it would be a story of he said/she said.

to be continued…

*Liza Minelli’s portrayal of Sally Bowles in Cabaret.

teaching — No Comments
5
Jul 06

Rate My Professor: Joseph K

Here is a sampling of RateMyProfessor.Com comments about Professor Joseph K (by students). I have altered the name and the university reference to maintain continuity with “If You Want To Go To Graduate School.” Here are posts from various students, ranging from praise to criticism to ad hominen attacks on critics:

Praise
A very stimulating experience–as long as you’ve got an open mind!

Interesting and unconventional–not recommended for the ultra conservative

Some of the best and most interesting classes I’ve had yet at the University, taught by one of its best scholars. Prepare to be challenged and inspired to expand your intellectual horizons beyond the typical University sanitized comfort zones. Very supportive.

Sensitive and encouraging; always open to discuss any concerns students might have. Stands by students and provides an atmosphere of openness and freedom of expression that enabled me to feel completely comfortable to do some of my best work yet.

He is very inspiring, but has a very different teaching style, go to his office and talk to him, the more he knows about the more he will help you get a better grade. Make sure to have a very open mind if you decide to take this class.

As weird as they get. First night he came into class with very dark sunglasses on and just stood up front staring at the class. During “Howl” he just kept repeating “Endless****and balls” (line from the poem) over and over. Made us buy his book, which was all about weird sex and violence in the future. However, he did expose us to a lot of good modern American lit and I learned a lot.

My comments: Regarding the first two comments, they’re general and just praise him. They could easily be from the disciples of a cult leader. The same could be said about the next three. Thses would definitely come from those in the inner circle, especially the part about going to his office. Be part of the party before class. The people who stop by his office before class are part of his “in crowd” (unless it’s that one time they need to discuss something with him). Learning from office visits? Shouldn’t that come from first reading the book and then from the lectures? I believe there are those students’ of Professor Joseph K who are perfectly aware of his abuses, yet defend him. Didn’t Jim Jones have similar defenders?

The last one is perhaps the most right on as far as positive comments go. The three before that have some merit, but they also could be written by a sycophant. This one highlights some of K’s oddness, but the student feels he or she has learned something in the end. I have my issues with Professor K; however, I did learn a lot from his classes.

Critical
Prof. K is condescending and vague. I’d never take another class with him.

What is with this dude and his SHADES? He wears wrap-around sunglasses in the classroom EVEN at night. I imagine this gives him a “secret identity” mindset that let’s him abuse and insult students he is afraid to talk to in the clear light. So POLITICALLY oriented that faking agreement with his politics is all it really takes to glide through A+!

really the worst parody of an mfa professor. with ego ten times bigger than his talent, and an uncanny knack for using and abusing his students, K plods on and on and on, publishing his friends work in his journals and getting published in turn in theirs. as sad a case of logrolling as is.

K is a joke! He writes no better than most students but has somehow slipped through the cracks. He uses his influence and power to help make the MFA at the University a lower than average experience while playing the characature part of hipster black-clad underground writer. Run!

A self-absorbed, condescending washed-up writer. Interested in obscure “cutting edge” fiction which no one reads. A coffee house writer-wannabe with a PhD. Thinks he’s avant garde cause he owns an all-black wardrobe. Really shouldn’t be teaching.

My comments: These people are really angry! The first one is general, could fit any disgruntled student. The second two seem to come from people who had some relationship with Joseph K. Of course, they’re disgruntled, but they’re more articlulate about their rage. They could be students who felt trampled on by Professor K, or they could have worked for him. The last two simply characterize him as a hack. His work has questionable literary merit, and he inflicts his books upon his students, who have no idea how to approach his text. They often fear saying, “I don’t get it.” The emperor is naked and no one wants to be unfit for an A or even a B. Several of the posts accurately depict his wardrobe choices and how he uses them for his persona.


Ad Hominen Attacks on Critics
The people who complain about K are probably bitter because of all the rejection letters coming their way. Get over yourselves. He’s a great teacher.

Comment: How does predicting rejection letters for critics help this poster’s case?


One of the most helpful professors at the University, provided you make an effort to talk to him about your work. He’s as flexible and fair as a prof can be. To the ranting girlies prior to this post: it’s time to unbunch your Victorian panties.

Comment: Ranting girlies? Victorian panties? This person is incredibly guilty of using sexist language to attack the critics.


Students who dislike Professor K fear unstructured assignments, demand conformity of themselves and others, never did drugs and are most likely sexually repressed. To create postmodern fiction is to live it, and vice versa. If that sounds lame or obscure to you, you may have a calling in Business or Comm. If not, you’ll love K.

Comment: Unstructured assignments – I don’t remember his assignments being unstructured. The irony of so called “non-conformists” is that they are accusing some people of not conforming to their views – that drug use is some kind of rite of passage and living a post-modern life (whatever that is) is a prerequisite to writing. As far as a so-called conformist having a call for Business or Communication, perhaps they are the smarter ones in the end. Maybe the humanities takes more brains, but full time professorships are at an all time low and being an adjunct prof for several institutions is just financial suicide.

In ref. to accusations–Work of disturbed individuals attempting to get out of doing course work, trying to force their own personal agendas/issues on the rest of us, using Prof. K as an easy target for their negativity. Don’t credit rumors as fact.
—————————

Any professor rated on this website will have a fair shair of praise and criticism. Some professors recieve almost nothing but nice things, while others are constantly attacked. Then there are the cult of personalities such as Professor Joseph K, whose disciples can see no wrong, while the disgruntled wish to see him get his just due.

The comments in the first two categories have merit. These are the posts that best represent views on him. The ad hominen attacks, however, are just weak.

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28
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 17)

September 14, 2001
Adam Hyde was quick to complain to the Department Chair, Karen Muir, about Professor Joseph K. Around 9am, I met Joe in his study and he showed me the e-mail the chair forwarded to him. Adam wrote a long, rambling, and at times incoherent letter complaining about the injustices he suffered from Joe, especially being asked to leave. Among the issues he listed, Adam claimed that Joe was insensitive to his disability (weak writing hand) and that he felt alienated by Joe’s left wing political views. He mentioned Professor Beltran, but could not spell his name correctly. After we read the e-mail, Joe was on the phone with the department chair. I would have to meet with her to tell her my side of the story.

After an hour of hanging out at Joe’s house, I walked to the university and went up to the top floor of the Humanities Building to meet with the chair. Dr. Muir was a dry, dowager type who could have been a character in an Edith Wharton story. Her light yellow hair was cut in a pageboy and she wore large, round glasses. She often wore two tone cardigans (à la Chanel) and baggy trousers to match. After she let me into her office, I sat down to tell her my side of the story. I told her about the e-mails and the hostility. She listened, but she also told me Joe’s actions concerning Adam were unprofessional – he could not ask someone to leave his class. I would later learn more about this issue when I taught as a TA. She then asked me if I wanted Adam kicked out of the program.

While I may have not liked Adam, I did not feel I could advocate kicking him out of the program. While I may have suffered some duress, I don’t think it was enough to completely justify me saying to expel him. I thought of the possibility of someone wanting to kick me out of the school, especially if I felt the accusation was unfair. I would want the administration to hear my side of the story and to show charity in dealing with me. I don’t think anyone’s right to study should be based on if others like him or her. If someone wants to study and they’re qualified, then they should by all means pursue it. At the time, I really did not know if Adam had what it took to be in grad school. I only had Joe’s word for it that he wasn’t a good writer and got in through politicking. Dr. Muir, during our conversation, mentioned that Professor Beltran believed people could be cured of mental illness through writing. I wrote about an insane narrator trying to become sane; Adam was the real thing. I could have easily countered that he belonged in a mental hospital, but didn’t. However, I decided to treat Adam the way I wanted and told Dr. Muir my decision. I confirmed it later in an e-mail, and she replied that she thought that was wise.

A year later, things would go bad between Joe and me. He gave me the silent treatment and acted openly disdainful towards me. I’m sure he would have loved to kick me out of the program at that point. All I had to do was something extremely egregious, especially towards him, and I would have been out. I hadn’t envisioned this when I had the talk with Dr. Muir, but I was glad I did not ask for Adam to be expelled.

Later in the evening, I went out. Gillian invited me to a party at a bar near the community college in downtown, so I took Hartwig along with me. Before that, we went to a rooftop party, which was packed, of a 1920′s hotel in Uptown. Soon, a FedEx plane descended to land at the airport. It was one of the first planes seen in the city since Tuesday. Life was returning to some semblance of normality. While people were scarce on Wednesday, they were everywhere on Friday. Everyone was out to party harder than usual, but no one certainly forgot what happened. Hartwig and I watched the planes fly across the sky and then hopped to a few bars before meeting Gillian and her friends. They seemed to like Hartwig, who then entertained them with his stories about his roommate, a supposedly straight man who gave hints of desiring him. Like most life of the party people, Hartwig had a few stories he would use over and over. It just was not apparent to me yet.

Since I quit the job at the supermarket, I had let my hair grow out for 14 months. I would chop it off the next day.

To be continued…

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23
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 16)

September 13, 2001
Adam Hyde was a sixty-ish, bald, pudgy man who always had something sharply critical to say about anything. He definitely was not liked by a lot of students (and some faculty, such as Joe). He was angry about one thing or another, talked about values, and often espoused arch-conservative positions. As far as I knew, he was a loner and possibly schizophrenic or borderline. He definitely was not wealthy, which would have qualified him as eccentric.

But, he was off-center. He often directed his rage at certain professors. In one poetry class, he called the professor an Amazon. He reported the doings of Tatiyana to the English Department chair. In the fiction workshop we were both in, Joe was his favorite target. Adam felt that Joe’s political views, especially during the discussion following 9/11, was radically left-wing. He felt marginalized by it. He was also angered by a presentation that Andrew and I did for the class the first week. Andrew presented a clever idea of collaborating, while I showed my hybrid text and image work. Soon, I would become on object of Adam’s wrath.

We developed a correspondence – I created an e-mail list for the class and he e-mailed me. I sent a link to my personal website and he made some odd comments on one of my stories. Joe had us pair off and collaborate by e-mail on a fiction writing exercise. Adam was paired off with Dr. Jules. He could not get in touch with Dr. Jules because I made a mistake in transcribing his mail address. He meanly pointed out to me that it was my mistake. I got a few other pecking e-mails during the week, but then there was one too many. He was past being mildly rude, and then made a nasty remark saying, “Since you are so full of yourself, I feel I can say this…” My handling of the e-mail list and the work that was presented in class were both attacked in the e-mail.

I overreacted. I felt I was being stalked by Adam. I told Joe about it two hours before class time. He thought I was taking it too personally, but he drove me to his house and gave me a valium. It really did not ease my anxiety, but I come to class high and dizzy. Some of the stairwells in the building had buffers installed to soundproof them with the subway station construction. I spun around and kicked one of the buffers. I continued to dance as I walked through the hallway to the classroom. Gillian observed my behavior was a cross between my fictional diva and The Sound of Music. Though I was giddy, I was still angry at Adam for the offensive e-mails. I drew a picture of him with an axe through his head. I just hoped he would go away.

Joe led a discussion of 9/11 and everyone’s response. We all had our say. I think Adam may have said something very right wing. I don’t remember. When it was my turn, Joe said that I shared with him an interesting idea the day before. I told him I thought it was possible the government set this up or knew about it and let it happen (because it was beginning to play into their approval ratings). He then shot me down, saying that idea was easily attacked. There never was an explanation for that remark. Perhaps, I was too high to ask for one. However, I think this was another incident that would lead to the decline of our relationship, professionally and academically.

After the class was over, Joe confronted Adam about the stalking issue. Adam denied it, but it was what Joe needed to ask him to leave. After a brief discussion, Adam felt no choice, and I went to Joe’s house afterward. Morgan greeted me with a hug, saying she was sorry for me dealing with Adam. Andrew came along for the after-class visit, and Joe disclosed to us the story of how Adam got invovled in the program. Joe and Tatiyana did not want Adam in the program – Adam was a nightmare for Tatiyana to deal with in one of her workshops. Joe sided with Tatiyana in her recommendation. Joe said that Adam worked with Jonathan Beltran and this was one of the students Jonathan would want in the program. Joe accepted some of Jonathan’s sponsored students so Jonathan would accept his. Adam was definitely a political pawn in the admission game. Joe resassured Andrew and me that he, Tatiyana, and Jonathan were unanimous in accepting our applications. I only have Joe’s word for it, but it would be reasurring to know this later when I fell out with him.

Joe put me up for the night in Morgan’s room. I slept soundly with another dose of valium.

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16
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 15)

I’m not going to present this in a diary format. The date on this and yesterday’s post simply place it in context of September 11.

September 12, 2001
The next day, after the national freak-out, we were expected to return to life as normal although the nation’s borders were still closed. I never paid much attention to airplane noise in the sky – it was as quotidian as the compound engine hum of cars on the freeway. Sometimes I was annoyed when the planes would soar over where I was and drown out a conversation or a moment with noise, but I missed them when the sky was completely silent. Nothing flew that week, not even the Cessnas. My family’s home is near a small airport Cessnas launch from and there was always at least one per day that would fly over the house. The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and the summer heat was still around, perfect for going to the beach. The beach was the furthest thing from my mind.

I don’t remember going to Teaching Composition that day. It was normally held on Mondays and Wednesdays, but I don’t remember going to class. I do remember, while wandering around on campus, I met up with Joe without any plans to do so. Joe told me about his computer having some problems, so I went with him to his home. It was a basic issue with Word and I did what I could. I don’t think I was successful. Joe, nonetheless, was grateful, and he treated me to dinner at an Uptown Italian restaurant.

Once there, Joe, his girlfriend Morgan, and I all had the eggplant parmigiana. Joe and Morgan were vegetarians, but I was not. Every time I dined with Joe, I avoided ordering dishes with meat. I didn’t mind eating vegetarian. During the early part of my limbo year, I went on a vegetarian diet and lost some weight. I stopped after a while, eating meat on my own or whenever my mother made dinner, but I thought it would offend Joe to eat meat around him. However, this fed into Joe’s impression of me that I was a vegetarian and it would later shock him when I made it clear that I wasn’t. But that would happen a few months later.

Earlier, when I rode with Joe to his house, we talked about the events of the days before. I was seriously shocked that this stuff would happen, especially on American soil. I was also frightened that this could be what the Bush administration would need to define themselves. An ineffectual oil baron’s campaign successfully rigged the election so he could come President, but he seemed lazy and indifferent to the responsibilities of the Oval Office the first few months of office. Everything he said was idiotic, such as when the Santana High shootings occurred earlier in the year. Once the World Trade Center imploded from the impact, Bush would say the things that American needed to hear. And his approval ratings rapidly rose. I told Joe I couldn’t help thinking the government set this up. I wish I had never said this to him.

Joe said this incident really hasn’t shocked him, that he’s been writing about these issues for a long time. He had long had an interest in Terrorism as a subject for writing; he had even devoted one of his University Press Journal’s issues to the theme. The issue of low-tech insurrection was in the zeitgeist – he wrote a pieces earlier in the year about Anthrax and other simple mechanical weapons. The terrorists aboard the four airplanes only used box-cutters and little else.

After the meal, Joe, Morgan, and I rode through one of the empty streets of Uptown. On most Wednesday nights, many people would cross the streets to go to a bar or restaurant, but most people chose to stay home this evening. Joe commented that a time like this would be a good time to smoke a joint – especially with people being in a reflective mood. Joe then drove out to the suburbs to drop me off, but I didn’t smoke a joint at all. Instead, I accessed a nasty e-mail from one of my classmates.

To be continued…

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15
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 14)

I’m skipping ahead a bit to part of my first year in graduate school, which took place during the September 11th year.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
I started my day and went to the University like any other day. I spent much time at the University and I went there to do some computer work for a workshop submission. I had a G3 tower at home, but the new G4′s were somewhat more powerful and there were laser printers at the faculty technology center. Since I worked for Joe, he wrote a letter to the center to give me access. I often abused my priveleges, and this morning was no exception.

I used the scanners and Photoshop to get my images at the right resolution, plunked them into a Microsoft Word file, and formatted the text around them. The G4′s RAM certainly could handle it. My beige G3 at home was a bit slower, and it would take me forever to do them. Plus, there were all the other people at my mother’s house to deal with – my brother, my mother, and sometimes her friends. There was also the temptation of the television – something I had to escape in order to get things done. Once I had the TV turned on, anything I hoped to get done was over.

Since I did not watch TV that morning or listened to the radio, I had no idea what had happened. I heard no mention of it on the bus on the way to the University. A television was set up on a table in the faculty technology center, but I paid no attention to it. Somehow, it didn’t strike me as strange that a TV was on in that room. After logging in, I sat down at a computer and began working. As I sought to get the right fit of an image on a page, I heard comments about a terrorist strike on the US and that these terrorists would not be coddled. I soon inferred that the strike occured in New York City. Even with the news broadcasting, everyone in the lab worked on their projects, even while they were listening. It was not until there was an announcement from Governor Gray Davis that everyone stopped. He announced that all California state institutions would be closed immediately.

The center’s administrator got everyone to leave at that moment. I took the elevator up to where the English Department was. I don’t know why I did this. Perhaps I hoped to see one of my new grad school friends to talk about what’s going on. I saw that some professors had not been notified and they were still carrying on, teaching their classes or sitting in their offices. I couldn’t find anyone, so I went to the campus bus station to go home,

There were many people waiting to take the bus. The buses arriving to or leaving campus were rarely full, but they were packed this day. I saw Malcom, the administrative assistant for the English Department, and chatted with him. I told him I knew this day would go down in infamy, like Pearl Harbor. I’m sure many other people were thinking the same thing. We waited for a crowded bus, boarded one, and left the campus.

My friend Liza Radley, whose birthday I would later learn was September 11, was aboard. She really hadn’t made an impression on me yet. What I remember of her was different from the Liza I would later come to know, the outgoing, intense, and gregarious girl with many friends. She was still new to the city and quiet. But we shared a bus trip together on that day, when the everyone in this city and even the rest of the nation was sudddenly confused.

Malcolm and Liza would get off in one of the first stops away from campus, while I took the bus to uptown. I just had to eat. I found a Greek diner on 5th Avenue and set my tote down. I ate a gyros plate while the restaurant’s TV relayed more details of the news. Now I had a better idea of what happened. The World Trade Center had imploded because two airplanes crashed into the towers. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon, and another crashed in a remote field in Pennsylvania, though the intended target was speculated to be the White House. The nation’s borders were closed off, and no plane would cross the sky, coming or going, for the next few days. I found it disquieting that “Attack on America” had a logo, whipped up in a few hours. After lunch, I went to a cafe and had some coffee, where I heard more of the same news. I then took the bus back to my suburban neighborhood.

My mother was home along with Yoko. Yoko’s family, her ex-husband and her daughter, were also visiting. I think we may have sat down for a late afternoon meal, but I don’t remember for sure. I do remember every channel on the TV was broadcasting updated news of the attacks on the World Trade Center. My mother had planned a birthday party for my niece that day, but cancelled it a few days before and rescheduled it. My niece shared a birhday with Liza Radley.

I could not not take the news for long all day, so I went into my room and logged onto the Internet. I alternated between working on my personal website, going on websites, and e-mailing friends to make sure they were okay and replying to e-mails asking about me.

When I was in the sixth grade, I saw a documentary about Nostradamus entitled The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. The great Orson Welles was definitely memorable as the narrator. It was not a ground breaking accomplishment such as his War of the Worlds broadcast or Citizen Kane, but his presence was appropriate. Most of the film covered Nostradamus’s prophecies during his lifetime and what he wrote about the future. Historical events were brought side by side with his prophecies, so it seemed plausible that he predicted the rise of Adolph Hitler, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution in Iran. Then the documentary discussed the near future. Here, dramatized footage of a man in a blue turban walked around a military computer command center of an unidentified Middle-Eastern nation and ordered a missile to be launched at New York City. It had yet to happen, but terrorists from Arab nations were beginning to gain prominence in the media.

I went on the Nostradamus newsgroup and the board was filled with posts about September 11. Many simply discussed what was going on, while others wondered if this was the prophecy come true.

Whether the prophecy was true or not wasn’t important. However, I knew my life wouldn’t be the same afterwards. No one’s life would be, though waving flags would prove to be a wonderful distraction for a while.

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9
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Graduate School (Part 13)

I’m at the cafe across the street from where I live, having something to drink and taking advantage of the WIFI. I’m also listening to a streaming broacast of Leonard Cohen being interviewed on Fresh Air for inspiration. It’s been two days since I’ve posted, giving the blog a breather, but now I don’t feel like writing. But, here I am, and I’m going to post.

At the close of Joe’s two classes, Madness in Literature and the fiction workshop, there was a need to party. Somehow, I got on the MFA’s e-mail list and I went to someone’s graduation party at their home by the beach. It was a mellow party, with wine and cheese and some other good food. After it ended, everyone went go across town to an uptown dive bar. I don’t remember much of the party except that it was the first time outside of Joe’s classes I got to carry myself as a pseudo grad student. At this point, I was accepted into the program, but I was not officially one. It would also be the first of many parties in my MFA career.

Joe threw a party for his girlfriend Morgan, who just completed her BA in English. Most of Joe’s parties hardly had any food, unless someone else brought it. This was definitely true here, as Morgan’s parents supplied most of the food. Joe, however, did provide wine. I was happy for Morgan and got to chat with her a bit. I met her relatives. I also met one of Joe’s colleagues, Professor D.H. Ogden, a short, coarse-looking man who parted his hair to one side and wore tweed. I remember talking to him briefly, but it was easy to get it in my mind what kind of teacher he was. I easily pegged him as a stuffy, literary conservative. I would find that this view was utterly wrong as I went through my graduate career. I think Ogden’s one of the most misunderstood professors in the English Department at the university. More on that later.

I attended the graduation ceremony for the English Department at the university. I had gone through the ceremony the year before, and though I had satisfied the requirements for the BA and I would officially graduate, I did not walk again. I sat in the audience and watched Tomas and some of the other MFA’s I know walk across the stage to get the fake diplomas. I got to hear the top MFA give her speech – it would be the last time I would hear it. The custom was done away with by the time I would graduate with my MFA.

In the evening after the graduation ceremony, I went to Tomas’s graduation party, held at his home. I met his wife, the elegant Columbian woman, and his teenage children. Tomas’s wife went through a great deal of trouble to prepare the food and it was wonderful. There was an Afro-Cuban band playing, with a small dance floor set up in the living room. At one point, I danced to the drumming, though I’m not the greatest dancer. Joe loves to be hip to this kind of stuff, but he didn’t dance. He shook my hand for going out there and doing it.

Dr. Jules and his wife were at Tomas’s party. At one point, he apologized to me about being hard on me in the workshop. I replied I thought he was being hostile, but apology accepted. Given that, I still did not trust him. An apology does not always restore confidence. He would later use the constant attack and apologize strategy with another writer I knew in the program, though she took it much better. However, she really didn’t put much stock in his apology.

The summer was beginning and I would not get a break from Joe at all. The journal needed attention, after all.

To be continued…

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6
Jun 06

If You Want To Go To Grad School (Part 12)

This post picks up where Part 11 left, exploring the writing workshop with Joe, AKA Professor Joseph K. Dr. Jules had managed to break my confidence. I also felt lost as a writer.

A young writer faces many challenges. The main challenge (which the others fall under) is the issue of material. Many young writers have not had much life experience, yet they absolutely want to write. No doubt they burn with energy and desire to create something and say something, to show others how they see things. Some have incredibly fertile imaginations, while others don’t. Many writers fall between the two. As a result, there is much experimenting to find one’s voice. One story form is tried after another, narrators change persons, characters become gay (or something else to make them interesting), attempts at cleverness are tried, and writers attempt to write in literary language. And a young writer is often not grounded to withstand other influences.

In the workshop, these influences are praise and criticism. It’s easy for a writer to become sloppy with her writing if she gets praise and little else. She may keep going, making the same crucial error after crucial error, because no one points it out to her. Praise is definitely a confidence booster, but it can also cause an ego trip. Criticism is an often misunderstood word. Criticism can (and often) comes across as tearing someone down. It’s associated with maliciousness and there is often malice by people who employ criticism in this manner. Ideally, criticism for the writer should be constructive, to help them make their works better. A good critic has an idea of what the writer is trying to say and addresses it.

I often received praise from Joe in the beginning. He praised me for my scholarship, my comments in class, and for my creativity in during the first half of the limbo year. It definitely raised my confidence. I’ve never been a good literary scholar. I wasn’t bad; I often received B+’s in literature courses and sometimes I had those moments where I wrote or said something highly original in those classes. Perhaps I wasn’t skilled in the language of literary analysis, I didn’t read the texts hard enough, or a combination of both. There was one case in undergraduate school where we had an essay quiz on Othello. I read the act, but a classmate came in and hadn’t. I gave her a synopsis of the act and then we took our quizzes. I got a B and she got an A. It was through sheer imagination she got through the quiz, and it made me wonder if some “A” students in literature were better at talking their way through it. Given this, I had managed to impress Joe in his literature courses. I always knew I was higher in the creative side, but had little confidence. Often, my fellow students did not get what I was trying to do with the stuff I presented in workshops. Sometimes the teacher didn’t get it either. Joe seemed to grasp what I was about when I first presented a story to him. Or did Joe simply form an idea that he had about me?

So, when I presented the work that amended my portfolio, Joe had high praise for it. He even presented careful line edits. But this seemed to decline as the semester progressed. Joe never even sent me an in absentia response for the second story (reviewed by the class while he was away for a reading). When Gillian and I did an e-mail exchange using the personas of Edie Sedgwick and Valerie Solanis, he gave me a mixed response – I got Solanis’s obsessiveness but lacked the panache. His response to my third story was lukewarm. As I mentioned in the previous post, I did not take it well.

It was difficult to hear other writers get praised at this time, especially Harlan, Jill, and Dr. Jules. They weren’t great, but it seemed important to stroke these novices. Sometimes, this form of positive reinforcement can lead to disappointment. Joe praised the work of someone in a previous workshop and she sent it to the journal for consideration. I read the story, but I really didn’t like it. Since she knew Joe, I passed it on to him and he rejected it. I don’t know how she took it, but it certainly must have been a shock. Joe did give me helpful comments, but I don’t think I was really listening. Instead, I fought within myself about being jealous for cheap praise.

I mentioned in the previous post that Dr. Jules’s comments destroyed me. If a writer has little confidence, then it is possible to let the mean comments of others get to them. In one of his moments of wisdom, Joe told me that I shouldn’t worry about what others think of me. In Bonnie Friedman’s Writing Past Dark, she mentions a Chinese proverb that says if one worries about someone’s approval, then they are their prisoner. It’s easy to let the Dr. Jules of the world take us prisoner. Then there are people less malevolent than Dr. Jules, the peers of the workshop. If the story is written to meet their approval, then it ceases to be a story. It’s a stripped down version of the story. Regardless of how the criticism is delivered, a writer needs to be careful. A thick skin helps. But the ability to see if it is useful or useless criticism is more important.

It was hard for me to listen, to filter out what was helpful. It was also difficult for me to stay focused. I was busy commuting to an east county community college for a tutoring gig, doing whatever was needed with Professor K’s journal, and doing work for “Madness In Literature” seminar. There was no real time to develop studio habits. I was successful with a literary experiment, but how could I keep it up, once it demanded that I continue the story?

I think this is where the decline started. I don’t think I was being served as a writer. I was busy serving Joe. I knew Jackson was getting served and he was becoming friends with Joe. I felt I had to work to get Joe’s approval. Jackson didn’t. Or perhaps he was serving Joe by being in his orbit. I remember feeling resentful at one point, but swallowed it. Like any poision, the resentment would not go away. It was deep inside and it would only be a matter of time before I was aware of it again. But that was months away.

At the end of the semester, Tomas asked me to e-mail everyone to announce his graduation party. Holly sent me an interesting response. She joked that it seemed that Joe was farming out my services and that there should be a labor union set up for me. I chuckled, but a year later, I wished there was a union to mediate between Joe and me. And a year after that, I would help Stevie do the groundwork for a graduate student workers’ union at the University.

To be continued…

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