Alone and Unobserved

So, this is my last semester with The Library Science Program That Will Not Be Named. And—besides finishing 36 hours of coursework—in order to finish the program, students are required to submit to a Right of Passage known as the Capstone Experience. Since this isn’t really an academic degree, or even a graduate degree, there’s no thesis, or qualifying exams, or anything real. So to make themselves feel better, and to mollify the graduate school they’re nominally beholden to, my program subjects its students to a week-long ESSAY EXAM.

Which I just finished.

Thank god.

I don’t know if I’ve passed yet. I may not! I may very well fail. Because, as usual, I took so long to get around starting the damn exam that I only had three days to write the three essays in.

But we’ll see. I’m hopeful.

And thank god that week of hell is over.

I turned in my last assignment for the Spring 2009 semester a few days ago, and it still hasn’t hit me that I DON’T HAVE HOMEWORK TO DO. Unfortunately, I won’t have long to get used to the idea—the summer term starts in nine days, so I need to get my party on.

That last assignment, by the way, was one I should have enjoyed thoroughly, and should have done very well on, but (as usual) I put it off until the very last day, which meant it was a stressful, slapdash, rush job. The topic: the evolution of feminist science fiction. Which allowed me to read such gems—and I am not being sarcastic here—as “Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!” by Raccoona Sheldon (AKA James Tiptree, Jr., AKA Alice Sheldon) and “When It Changed,” by Joanna Russ. Both keep returning to bother and delight me, just like all the best fiction does. Cannot recommend either story highly enough.

Last night I went to a karaoke bar for the first time since I started drinking, and my friend Denice and I blew everyone’s minds with our rendition of the Scissor Sisters’ “Filthy/Gorgeous.” Also mindblowing, I’m sure: our filthy, erotic dancing. We didn’t carry no watermelon, if you know what I’m saying.

I need an A this semester or I have a very real chance of a) losing my scholarship, b) having to repay said scholarship, to the tune of several thousand dollars, and c) getting kicked out of my low-rent library science program. Getting an A is not looking likely, and I am steeling myself for the worst.

But today I logged into the course website (aka WebCT, aka Blackboard, aka The Java Juggernaut of Death, aka That #%$&ing Piece of *#@$!) and discovered that the web design project, which I was supposed to have started sometime in October, but which I actually started a week and a half ago and submitted on Monday, had been graded. 100 out of 100. Giving me 40% of my grade. Or at least an F. It’s a start!

What with the constant background stress of procrastinated homework, the two feverish weeks of cramming, paper-writing and assignment-finishing, and the week where my landlord misplaced my rent check and I thought I was going to be turned out into the snowy streets to starve, I have been extremely, constantly, chronically stressed for at least the past two months. In fact, I didn’t realize how much that terrible class was weighing on me until suddenly it was over: the last assignment was turned in, the last stupid, endless exercise in mind-reading (i.e., multiple-choice quiz) was done, the last lame, kiss-ass comment was left in the course’s online forum. I might have a failing grade in the course, but it was DONE.

The next day at work, I was a changed man. I was patient and polite with patrons, even the trying ones. I listened to their inane blather difficulties, smiled at them, and told them to have a nice day.

It’s great to have my librarian mojo back. I wonder how long it’ll last.

Wow, it’s been a while since I last updated, hasn’t it? I blame school. Not the massive amount of schoolwork I’m doing, but the massive amount of procrastinating on the tiny amount of schoolwork I’m not doing, which leaves me completely distracted and twitchy all the time. Not good blogging weather, in other words. Not good anything weather, really: I’ve been having trouble sleeping again, and the last novel I read took me a few weeks to finish. It’s almost like my attention is divided. Like there’s something I should be doing . . .

Two days ago I went to a party (my ex’s birthday party, to be exact) where half of QUAC showed up, and I got to see most of the people I swim with a) clothed and b) drunk for the first time. I’ve avoided QUAC-related social events because I’m not really comfortable around crowds of people I don’t know, and that goes double for crowds of gay men. (My old therapist was working with me on that, but we never entirely resolved the issue.) Maybe I will go to more of these parties in the future, now that I know I won’t come home dead drunk, naked and/or crying. And maybe I’ll actually get to know some people from QUAC on more than a “Uh, hey, what’s up?” basis.

Anyway, we worked on the breast stroke today. There are a group of people who coach at QUAC, on a rotating basis, and this was the first time I had done breast stroke with this coach. As usual, her description and instructions were completely different from every other coach (this reminds me strongly of the challenge of being taught dance by different people), but the main difference was: I GOT IT. “Her” way of doing breast stroke was much more physically demanding than what I was used to, but it also made complete sense to my body. For the first time, I felt like I was actually swimming when I did breast stroke, instead of floundering in place. So that was nice.

My Twitter followers may have noticed that I attended something called “The 5th Annual People’s Summit on Poverty” a week ago, and one of the reasons I’m so late in posting anything is that I’m working on a post about that. Specifically, about the issues that were discussed and the statistics that were presented.

One of the things that drives me the most nuts about right-wing rhetoric in this country is how blatantly selfish and punitive it is. Even if the words used are conciliatory or loving (though usually they are not) the tone and the implications scream

“Help yourself. It’s your fault if you have problems. It’s your fault if you aren’t middle/upper-middle class. I worked hard for my money. You need to suffer the consequences of your actions, even if it means you die. I’m against any government action that doesn’t unilaterally condemn behavior I disapprove of, even if it means people die or get deadly diseases and remain uneducated about how to help themselves. . . . etc., etc.”

So I am very interested in counteracting this kind of thinking both through public education and through political/legal activism. Which is why, when I noticed that my cousin Bill was organizing the Summit, I immediately put it on my calendar, and that morning took two buses to get to there. Everyone involved in anti-poverty or anti-hunger initiatives in Salt Lake knows Bill, so at these kinds of functions I almost feel like I’m related to a celebrity. For a few hours I become “Bill’s cousin,” an identity I’m proud to claim. I only wish I were as quick to devote my time and talents to social justice as he is.

Expect a post on poverty and hunger initiatives in Utah. If you aren’t into that sort of thing, you can skip it. It won’t hurt my feelings. Just know that God loves those who help others. Think about it.

I wasn’t tagged, but I’m doing this anyway. I am aware that this is cheating.

20 years ago I:

1. Was seven.
2. Lived with my family in Hemet, California, in my grandma’s house.
3. Read all the time.
4. Had just finished my first year of homeschool.
5. Was the second of four siblings.

10 years ago I:

1. Was seventeen years old.
2. Had just started my third year of college and my first year at BYU.
3. Had just moved into the French House at BYU’s Foreign Language Student Residence (FLSR).
4. Was a senior in mathematics.
5. Was taking piano lessons and voice lessons, and the next semester would take my first ballroom dance class and sing with the BYU Men’s Chorus for the first time.
6. Was the second of nine siblings (a situation which continues, unabated, to this day).

5 years ago I:

1. Was 22 years old.
2. Had just gotten back from a Mormon mission to Southern Italy.
3. Was living once again in the French House, trying to get my French back.
4. Was a super-senior in mathematics.

3 years ago I:

1. Was 24 years old.
2. Had gone through my first three relationships—a girlfriend and two boyfriends—in rapid succession. (Two of those relationships were so short they probably don’t count, but they’re on my list anyway.)
3. Was living at my sister’s house in American Fork for the summer.
4. Was about to come out publicly (and briefly) for the first time.
5. Was a super-super senior in mathematics.

So far this year I:

1. Attended my graduation for my first master’s degree and finished the second semester in my second master’s degree (without actually failing any classes!).
2. Have started swimming with QUAC at least once a week.
3. According to Goodreads, have read 74 books this year.
4. Have been working at the S— Public Library for 2-1/2 years.
5. Have been out as gay and an atheist, and out of the Mormon church, for almost three years.
6. Have hit the 3-year mark on this blog.

Yesterday I:

1. (See yesterday’s blog post.)

Today I will:

1. Finish downloading the first episode of the Doctor Who second series and the 2005 Doctor Who Christmas special.
2. Watch more Doctor Who.
3. Lie awake, sleepless, wishing I hadn’t finished off the pizza that was left over from last night.

Tomorrow I will:

1. Drink coffee.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Work out.
4. Go to work.
5. Watch more Doctor Who.

In the next year I will:

1. Get down to 13% body fat.
2. Go on vacation (this summer) with my family for the first time in over ten years.
3. Go on vacation (next summer) outside of the country.
4. Start a story idea notebook.
5. Start actually writing again.

I tag Craig, David, Daisy, chosha, Nick and WHOEVER ELSE FEELS LIKE IT GOD I’M NOT YOUR MOTHER.

I am a bad student—even a very bad student—and I have any number of professors, teachers, teaching assistants and classmates who could provide testimony to that effect. I hate studying, rarely turn in assignments that are complete or on time, procrastinate constantly and lack any discernible motivation. Despite these deep character flaws, I managed to coast along for several years as an undergraduate, getting mostly A’s and A-’s, regularly appearing on the Dean’s list, repeatedly receiving full-tuition scholarships and, I need hardly add, earning the hatred and contempt of harder-working students everywhere.

The tide began to turn in graduate school. Coasting along now got me B’s and C’s, and I began to struggle to understand the simplest concepts in the courses I was taking (I am still embarrassed that it took me three tries to understand rational and Jordan canonical form, not to mention the fact that tensors still escape me). But instead of changing my ways, buckling down and putting my shoulder to the wheel, I became even more apathetic. “I didn’t like that class anyway,” became my refrain. “If I had really tried, it would have been cake—so it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t respect the professor, and I can’t apply myself for someone I don’t respect. I’m an unfunded graduate student, and no one pays any attention to me. I AM MAGIC AND THE RULES DO NOT APPLY TO ME.”

I got my master’s in math by the skin of my teeth and moved on to bigger and better things, i.e., a library science program, which I figured would be stupid and easy enough for me to just sail through, after the utter hell that was mathematics. In a fit of brilliance (cleverly disguised as temporary madness/idiocy) I signed up for a program that began two weeks after my last math class ended, thus ensuring that I would be thoroughly burned out right from the beginning. And thus indeed it proved: in the first semester, the classes were incredibly easy—insultingly so—and yet I failed to excel, receiving B’s in both of them. Again: “They were so stupid that it wasn’t worth trying. If they challenged me, I would do better.”

This last January, I enrolled in two classes. One, a database class, actually seemed interesting; there were only two assignments the entire semester, and the main one involved creating a fictional library, designing a database to manage it and cataloging ten items in the collection. The professor seemed intelligent enough, and he and I got on fairly well during the face-to-face class time in Vegas (read: I argued with him constantly, contradicted him openly and generally annoyed the crap out of all the other students in the class). On the whole, the course promised to be time-consuming but possibly rewarding.

The second, a course on library management, seemed simple—too simple. The only homework worth mentioning was a weekly discussion on an online message board, coupled with a few minutes—nay, seconds—of research to back up our opinions. Naturally, as this was, without doubt, the easiest class I had ever taken in my college career, this would be the first class I would fail, the first F I would ever receive in my life. Because the course was so far beneath my notice, I didn’t bother even ordering the textbook until the second week of class, and while I was waiting for it I blew off a couple of assignments (which later turned out to be worth one-third of my grade). Once I had the book I participated in the discussions, but only sporadically. By the end of the semester I was barely getting a B in the database course, and I was well on my way to getting an F in Intro to Management.

Five days ago (two days before the end of the semester) the instructor of the management course sent me an email, informing me that I was failing and asking if I wanted to make up part of the work I had missed (work she had previously told me was un-make-up-able). I’m sure you understand that I had to think long and hard about this. On the one hand, if I made up the work I wouldn’t fail, I might be able to stay in the program, and I might keep my scholarship. On the other hand, I would get a C in the course, and I already had plenty of C’s. Did I really want to give up the experience of getting my very first F, just so I wouldn’t fail out of graduate school?

In the end, I decided that I still had a year and a half of the program to bag my trophy F (maybe next semester??!), and I scraped together the required work at the last minute and submitted it just under the wire. It’s official: I passed both of my classes this semester, I’m taking the summer off, and I may just run off to Europe and never come back.

[To the scholarship committee (Hi, Jeanine!): this is all a HUGE joke. I'm an awesome student, I love the program and I got A's in both classes, no matter what my transcript says.]

As a rule I stay as far away from Temple Square and environs as possible (I no longer feel comfortable surrounded by Mormons), but yesterday the power of my scholarship compelled me to spend a total of eight hours in the Mormon Family History Library, the largest genealogical research library in the world—according to Wikipedia, at least—and a veritable hotbed of the Mormoniest of Mormons.

I and my fellow scholarship recipients were hosted in a small, wood-paneled room (“the largest classroom in the Library,” we were told) and sat through eight presentations on the Family History Library, genealogy, technology and archiving. Despite the subjects, only one of the eight presentations our group of scholarship recipients attended was actively boring, and fortunately I was able to sleep through it without much problem.

It is always endlessly strange to find myself in a position where I am both the insider and outsider when it comes to Mormonism, even though it happens fairly often in Utah, but I don’t usually have to endure such situations for eight hours at a stretch. On the one hand, whenever our guide talked about being “prompted” to do something, or tried to explain why Mormons are so big on genealogy, I understood what she meant. On the other hand, the Mormon obsession with genealogy has never sounded as nutty, or Mormon theology as weird. I wonder what impression my non-Mormon classmates took away with them.

All that classroom time wore me out, and I was so tired this morning that I skipped swimming. What with the past few days of crazy eating and crazy not-eating, I am not doing too well in my personal fitness plan at the moment. But I have faith that this will change.

I had my master’s commencement and convocation today (for the degree I received last August), and my parents came up from California to attend. When I met my mom in the parking lot where the graduates were lining up, she immediately said, “Oh, wait, there’s something—” and tried to flick the piercing off my lip, before she realized what it was. (Maybe I should have told her about it in advance?) Once that was cleared up, she bestowed two shell-and-nut leis on me, along with an awesome bone fishhook necklace.

The commencement speech was given by U of U Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology and 2007 Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi (read his early life story—it’s a trip and a half), who spent about half his time urging the graduating class to get off their asses and stop global warming, which was a surprising but not unwelcome topic.

The college convocation was in the afternoon, and Governer Jon Huntsman, Jr. gave the keynote address. Like Dr. Capecchi, he spent a great deal of his time on global warming, this time within the general framework of exhorting us to change the world. And yet he was not booed for unoriginality. I guess being governor has its perks.

My sister came up from BYU—braving damnation by setting foot on the unhallowed ground of the Devil’s University—and took several photos of the convocation, including the hooding ceremony. Then we walked home, and my mom took pictures of the master’s hood in its correct position (i.e. hanging down in back) as well as up over my head as if it were an actual, functioning hood, instead of the bizarre, vestigial appendix it is. Maybe you would like to look at these pictures? If so, click below.

After Christmas with my family in American Fork, a week and a half at the Tibbitts Family Manse in California and a day of driving with a friend, I’m finally back in Salt Lake City.

Things I will miss about staying in my family’s house:
My parents and little sisters. My friend Carrie. Guitar Hero marathons on Carrie’s Nintendo Wii. Having an army of people to cook for. A mother to do the grocery shopping. Mild winters.

Reasons I am enjoying being back in Salt Lake:
Living alone. Quiet time to myself. Central heating. Unfiltered internet access. Snow. Interacting with non-Mormons occasionally.*

I won’t be in town for long, though. On Thursday I’m flying to Las Vegas for another library school seminar, which (fingers crossed!) won’t be as deadly as the last one. (See: Library Seminar #1 for the incoherent details.)

I like linguistics, but I have no formal training in it. Somehow, in the midst of the choking landslide of electives I took as a super-supersupersuper senior, I never did take a linguistics class. As it is, I dabble, unconvincingly.

Following the lead of the Speech Language Archive, I have recorded myself reading a brief passage that was designed to highlight distinctive accent and speech patterns. Listen closely, and see if you can distinguish the muddled strains of California, Utah and The Gay, and pick out overtones of Texas and Haughty Intellectual.

If you ever have several hours to kill, head on over to the Speech Language Archive and just listen to the hundreds of different accents they have in their database. It’s like a beautiful linguistical dream.

Or record your own self reading the paragraph, and post it on the Internets. It’s fun!