I hate the news. I try to avoid it at all costs and get my information from smart, critical sources like Professor Crunk.
Still waiting for white male pathology to be termed what it is: terrorism.
White guy killer syndrome: Elliot Rodger’s deadly, privileged rage – Salon.com.
No matter what sort of bureaucratic nightmare I have to suffer to work as a professional writing tutor, the frustrations pale next to the exciting, multi-talented students that I get to support and challenge.
I have had an extra vibrant string of students this week–sociological studies on Michael Jackson, human geography of Tanzania, critical analyses of fast food and white pseudo-activism. Community college is obviously more diverse than my tiny liberal arts alma mater, and the students I tutor are no exception. Their opinions and experience often challenge my own academically-steeped politics, and I have to shut my white, Bachelor’s degreed, class privileged mouth and hear what they have to say. It’s humbling to be reminded that queerness and gender non-conformance aren’t the limits of diversity in my current tutoring job.
Too bad admin is such a mess, because SCCC students rule.
I’m trying to not get wildly upset at the SCCC administrators about their totally useless tutor training. The most difficult part of my grumpy energy is that I don’t even know who to direct my comments towards; everyone I’ve tried to communicate with has pointed me to someone else. It almost feels as if they are playing a bureaucratic trick, dangling a treat in front of me as I leap through hoop after hoop like a miniature horse.
The obsession with education psychology has really gotten out of hand–instead of addressing systemic inequalities, educators replace these difficult subjects with frilly, feel-good psychobabble on “self-regulated learning.”
Of course, the systemic inequalities critique would require some self-regulated privilege checks, not to mention some reverse brainwashing.
So I’m trying to eliminate gluten from my already restrictive diet. I’ve been feeling really sluggish and heavy, and I know that my occasional binge-eating of whatever day-old bread Chett brings home from WFM is not helping matters.
But I am now officially the obnoxious, allergen-ridden person that I have always rolled my eyes at. Don’t take yourself too seriously, folks. You’ll look like a fool sooner or later.
So now my meals consist of an avocado, a can of beans, some berries, and corn chips. I feel like I’m back in college!
I’ve been both privileged and reckless enough to visit several countries on three continents. I’ve slept on the edge of the Sahara with camels and desert cats and I’ve grinded & thumped to wild house music in a Cold War bomb bunker in Prague. I once drove up the east coast to Montreal and back in less than two days, losing a cat and gaining two British friends en route.
I’ve been lucky enough to see some of the most stunning vistas across Earth, both urban and natural. Today, I am prepared to claim that Seattle is the most startlingly beautiful place I’ve ever been.
Ringed on both sides by mountains literally radiating violet, frosted with daubs of snow at their peaks, these two ranges can only be seen on the clearest of days: a rarity in notoriously foggy PNW.
But this week, Seattle found its stride and showed off its full splendor: volcanic Mount Rainier looming beyond the city, the craggy Olympics jutting into a deep blue horizon past Elliott Bay, and the omnipresent Space Needle, dripping with camp and space race theatrics.
Urban beauty is still so underrated
Made a new friend at work the other night. He was very well dressed, and strolled in bragging about the East Coast. I knew immediately that we would be friends.
Upon further conversation, we discovered that we were both from North Carolina, that his family lived in Salisbury, and that his father was also called Jesse. When I asked him what in the world he was doing in Seattle, he proclaimed, “why, teaching these west coast folk some mother fucking social skills.”
I just about keeled over.
Where are all the flamboyant Southerners? They’ve been quashed under the wheels of the tech bro and the too-cool townie. This fellow is paving the way for the rest of us.
Jesse Rice-Evans 