9106 Words

My thesis is done! Done done done! Hurrah!

Well, not exactly done. I mean, I've still got five weeks in which to revise/refine/edit. But I'm done the first draft. The cake is baked, so to speak -- now I just have to ease it out of the pan, ice it, and put pretty little designs on the top.

Here's hoping it doesn't stick to the sides....

One Less Thing to Worry About

As some of you may know, I've had a few run-ins over the past year with a particularly socially inept man whom I call "John". He's very geeky, very insecure, and trumpets both the fact that he's a published author (he doesn't usually mention that his book is an online fanfiction) and single at every opportunity. His overwhelmingly large ego and clear need to be noticed made my class with him last year very uncomfortable, and he was the main reason why I dropped a class this year. The combination of feeling angry at him for alienating everyone else, and feeling sorry for him that he understood people so little was just too much for me.

For the last few months (ever since I dropped the class) I've been terrified of meeting John. I don't know why, really. Mostly, I guess, because of the visceral reaction of all those emotions associated with meeting him -- shame, anger, pathos, discomfort, etc. Also because I just didn't know how to deal with him and his creepy need to find a girlfriend. Being single now myself, I felt like I was exposed.

But I didn't like being so afraid. I'll have to deal with all sorts of people who are screwed up out there in the real world (not to mention, quite a few lecherous humps), and I don't want to have to run from them all my life.

So I was very happy today when I ran into him during my lunch on campus. Certainly, I had a shot of gut-twisting emotion at first, but ignoring that I went on to talk to him over lunch. It was... not entirely un-creepy, but very good nonetheless. Yes, he made the inevitable pass at me ("Hey, where's your engagement ring?...Oh, you didn't ever wear one? How is your boyfriend?..") but I think I handled it very well. "No, I don't have a boyfriend anymore... But, just to clear the air, I should say I'm not interested in dating right now." And after that we were fine. For an hour or so, we had a very revealing conversation about men and women and intimacy and relationships and giving vs. taking and the "knight in shining armour" complex. It never felt awkward because he wasn't trying to get me out on a date anymore, and I was pleasantly surprised when we said goodbye without him desperately trying to set up another meeting.

It's nice to know that I'm not afraid of him anymore. I politely rebuffed his advances, I discovered him to be less lonely than I thought (he still seems to have mostly internet friends, but he was candid about some of his own faults around relationships and women), and most importantly, now he's a real person. He's no longer just a caricature of a geeky creep, now he's a living breathing person who, despite his (still considerable) flaws, deserves real consideration.

Ancient Wisdom?

Some days, I think Galen was on to something with his four humours. After all, most of us are by nature one emotional mood most of the time. I am sanguine -- hopeful, energetic, willing to leap into new things. Most of the time, warm blood courses through my veins, and I feel on an even keel. But every so often, I have a melancholy day -- for no particular reason, I wake up not my normal happy self. In some ways I can only explain this through some sort of imbalance -- and as anachronistic as it sounds, an excess of black bile kind of makes sense. The mood comes from inside me, from my gut, almost. It's not because of bad things happening to me, or because of bad thoughts, or anything like that. It's just...there.

Really, I could almost throw away modern science and embrace Galen's idea -- were it not for some of his other, much more crackpot ideas. "Fumigation of the vagina"? I don't even want to know what exactly that involves...

An Ode to Democracy, Anyone?

Something that occured to me last election -- I'd like to someone write a poem during their moment of democracy -- a poem from inside the election booth. I know it seems silly, but despite all the media chatter about "Canada's decision," the reality is that we as individuals have next to no power in government. It is only en masse, and only in the brief moments inside the voting booth, that we have any power at all. So I'd like someone to write about that moment, about that tiny smidgen of power and influence we hold while marking our X. I would do it, but I don't have any poetic talent, and think the elections officials would probably become suspicious if I spend an hour inside the booth, only poking my head out occasionally to yell "Anyone know a rhyme for "constitutional monarchy?"

Another, brief thought. I don't have the constitution for either sports or politics. If I let them, either could sweep me up in a tide of popular emotion and carry me away. I watched the Rose Bowl (a big American football game) over the Christmas Break, and at one point during the dying minutes, I realized all my muscles were tensed. Similarly, I woke up this morning with a knot in the pit of my stomach*, a direct reflection of the knowledge that thousands of politicians and their aides are all nervously awaiting the results of today -- results which could see them in triumph, or in another career. My reaction to the stress of sports watching is simply to leave the room (usually when the team I'm silently rooting for is losing), but I have no such recourse in politics. Instead, I take refuge in feeble excuses: "It doesn't really matter who wins -- our country won't change that much. Really." Unfortunately, I can't leave the country if my political party loses the game, so I'll just have to learn how to be a better (and less emotionally involved) fan.

[* - although, in a much less romantic explanation, the knot could just be because after a weekend of three games of innertube waterpolo, two of rugby basketball and four of broomball, my stomach muscles are howling in protest.]

Displacement

In the wake of having a Sunday where, in the space of about a half hour, I found out that my mum needs to have surgery, my brother had seen the body of someone who fell/got pushed off a balcony in his apartment building, and my best friend's childhood pet was under threat of being euthanized, I decided that burying myself in work for a while wouldn't be a bad idea.

It's worked surprisingly well, actually. I may not be able to heal my mother's gall bladder, hurry a police investigation, or adopt an animal in need, but I can write a thesis, damnit! Whereas once the idea of writing 10,000 words (none of which were 'Screw Flanders') frightened me, I can now see my random thoughts coelescing into one, big, self-contained paper. Like puzzle pieces, the disjointed sections I wrote over Christmas are slowly linking up in my mind and on my screen. If I can just keep doing what I'm doing, soon all my points will be wrestled into submission and lined up in an orderly, grammatically correct fashion.

If only I had as much control in the real world -- control enough to make order out of the seemingly senseless pain, violence and neglect that is currently happening in the lives of the people I love.

In a year, will anyone care?

The problem with writing a year-end review which features quotes from the first post of each month is that it then becomes very difficult to write the first post of the New Year without thinking that it, in turn, might be immortalized (ha!) in a subsequent year-end post. Do I write about my New Year's party? (which was fantabulous) Do I write something banal about going back to school and being kind of blah? What would best represent 1/12th of my personality, come next December?

You can see how this sort of pressure can inhibit one's writing abilities.

Also, I had a fabulous idea for something interesting and insightful to say, but then I fell asleep, and when I woke up, all I could remember was that I once had had the idea (and it was a good one, too!) Very frustrating.

So you'll please excuse me for the long break in updates, but my life is boring, and the pressure of the New Year combined with sleep/heightened expectations of future brilliance got in the way of my normal procedure of simply writing whatever the hell I want.