Category Archives: anger

Unfair Emotions

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I found myself uncharacteristically furious in a doctor’s office this morning. I finally got in for a follow up on a bad rash on my hands. A rash bad enough that people would notice. I started telling people I had leprosy or mange. I started wearing bike gloves when off the bike to keep myself from scratching the skin off the back of my hands. There were days when I would have happily torn it all off to make the itching stop. I was furious because it took me a month of suffering to make the initial doctor’s appointment, and only then when I found myself explaining to yet one more person about the itch and the mange did I think to myself that this was ridiculous and a normal person would surely have gone to see a professional by now. I didn’t feel very respected or listened to by the first physician’s assistant, and he gave me advice to use nothing on my hands but water — no soap, no nothing — that is clearly not reasonable for the long term, and not really reasonable for the short term. Not even after using the restroom? No showers with soap for how long? When can I wash my hair again?

In addition to his unmanageable advice, he said he’d refer me to this other physician’s assistant with expertise in dermatology. Hope to hear from them by the end of the week. He saw it close to at its worst; surely it was obvious that this was an acute problem needing prompt attention? The wait ended up being about 5 weeks, and it might have been longer. Plenty of time for the rash to abate and get worse and abate again.

So there I was in this new PAs office, and I was angry. Angry for the unmanageable advice. Angry that it took me so long to ask for help, and when I finally reached out for help when I was suffering and that I got put off for 5 weeks, and had to argue to get seen as quickly as I was. Angry because the rash is not that bad this day; in its current state I’d never have bothered to make an appointment at all. Angry because she had nothing really new to say — I’ve heard this and read this stuff before — I know I have eczema on my hands, and I can easily Google the standard advice — I don’t need YOU for that. Angry because each practitioner you talk to has his or her favorite brands of lotion and soap, and is happy to advise you to use that. Not that any of them seem to make a difference. And what are you supposed to do with the other stuff you bought? Landfill it?

I know all this is unfair — not her problem, not her fault, not her job to put up with me when I’m not even slightly feeling like being pleasant about all of this. But there it was. It’s not even about the rash, or the wait, or the products, or the advice.

It’s about the other times I’ve been in crisis and I’ve reached out for help. To be told that it’d be 2 weeks or 4 weeks before I could see someone. When my phone calls weren’t returned. When I was not sure I could hold on. Those times I’d get in to see someone after holding on to hope for weeks and it would be useless. Each time feeling lost and alone, and left to struggle one day at a time forward, under my own power.

I know I’m one of the privileged, and if I’m finding it this hard, how much worse is this for those who do not have my privilege?

Cecil the Lion; Hunting and Conservation

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“If we want wildlife to be around for future generations, we have to understand that that wildlife has to have a value. If it doesn’t have a value, especially in the continent of Africa, it is going to be gone.”

“Living next to a black rhino is a nightmare.”

When the whole Cecil the Lion thing blew up, I kept quiet, not wanting to have the Wrath of the Internet (or of even just my friends) come down on my head. But I thought the dentist was being demonized without good reason. Surely he shelled out $50,000 for a hunt because he wanted a legal hunt. If anyone is to blame here, surely primary blame should be on the professionals he hired.

Today I’m gathering my courage and posting about this, because yesterday I listened to a Radiolab episode on this. Twice.

You may find hunting detestable. You may think it is in conflict with conservation. But I want to ask you how much money you have given to conservation this year? In your lifetime?

The least you can do is listen. Listen to this.

Or download from Radiolab and listen later
The Rhino Hunter on Radiolab.

Cutting Corners

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I was grading papers and computer code earlier today. When students’ code doesn’t agree with mine, I wonder why. When it looks nothing like the pseudocode in our book, I wonder where it came from. First hit, Wikipedia. There’s the same code with a few names changed to disguise it.

I’m clear in course policies that copying code is against the rules. It’s printed on every assignment that involves code. Do not copy code. It’s in the syllabus, noting that the minimum sanction will be a zero on the assignment.

On the flip side, you can go from the pseudocode in the book to actual code, and I’ve got no issue with that. That’s what the pseudocode in the book is for.

The first case was so blatant, that it’s pretty obvious what I need to do.

Then there’s the second case. This time the code from Wikipedia was modified to fit in an alternative environment, but it’s still pretty clearly the Wikipedia code, and certainly not the pseudocode from our book.

I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. No, I don’t want to forbid students from looking at internet resources, I think you can learn a lot of valuable things that way. But, if you are assigned to code something we learned about in class, I expect your main resource to be either materials from class or from the book, not copying and pasting something off the internet.

It never occurred to me that I would have to spell that out. Maybe I need to spell that out.

I see an ugly situation in my future. I know I can handle it. But this year has been such a year of handling and struggling. Part of me just wants to hide.

Add to my mistakes: looking myself up on RateMyProfessor. Never got any feedback from Texas A&M. But the complainers are out from my new school. I give too much work and it is *so* hard. I don’t help enough in class, and I have a good teaching philosophy, but I just don’t use it.

Note to self: don’t look at that stuff. Haters gonna hate. Your job is to teach, and to ask hard questions. If you are only asking easy questions, something is wrong with what you are doing.

But another part of my job is to motivate students to want to try and do well. I wish I knew what I could do better at that. On that, I thought this was a good article. Rethinking Positive Thinking.

Painful truth

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Dear Students,

I know I upset one of you today, and goodness knows whether I will upset more of you tomorrow when I actually hand back homework.

The student I talked to today worked very hard and felt he got robbed on his score. Unfortunately, he just got the math wrong. Scores in general were lower than I would have liked them to be. I know I caught some students out — they were not thinking that 2 weeks to do homework means 2 weeks of homework to be done. I know others got caught thinking that if a few problems were easy then they all would be easy.

I don’t know if I’m harder or more conscientious than other instructors. I do know that I believe that all of you can master this material and get it right. I know that I am going to push you to get to that level.

If I tell you that you got something right when you really didn’t, I am leading you into complacency when you are capable of doing more and doing better. I would rather have you angry with me and have you figure out how to make a stronger, better effort to get things right and understand why you are right than have you satisfied with your grade and mediocre at solving problems.

Would you rather believe a pleasant lie or know a painful truth? I have always lived on the side of painful truths. Today feels like one.

Honestly? I want you to like me. I want you to enjoy my class. I want you to learn a lot. I want you to grow. I know that all those things go together. If you hate me, and you hate my class, learning a lot and growing are less likely to occur. But if I have to give you a false sense of the merit of your work to make you like me, that won’t work either.

So, if you get this homework back and you need to be angry with me, I encourage you to be angry with me. Anger at me that keeps you motivated and working is better than anger at yourself that is paralyzing and makes you think, “Why should I even try? Why should I even bother?” Or worse, fall into inaction because of those thoughts.

I am a grown woman, with a strong soul. I can handle your anger.

That said, I hope that I can bring honesty and encouragement and grace and motivation to you. I hope that I can be someone who helps you to believe in yourself. I hope that I can hold you to high standards, and motivate you to hold yourself to high standards and help you see that you are capable of meeting them. Even when the work is far, far from easy.

That’s what I want for you. That’s what I want for me. That’s what I want for this class, and every other class that I teach.

With sincerity, and encouragement, and even, yes, with love,

Dr. Jinx

Dogs and responsibilities and consequences

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I’ve been thinking about dogs today. About their owners/keepers. About my Dad.

I think the guy with the dog that ran into my fellow hiker, and who then was reluctant-at-best to leash the dog after she got injured is now removed from the hiking group. I think that’s just. He didn’t come back to help us carry her down. While I’m not a fan of leaving dogs in cars in Texas in the summertime, we aren’t in Texas. It was a cold day; carrying a person down the trail is a hard job even for a sizeable group of people, and the dog could have been left in the car.

That makes me think of my father and the dogs in his life. He had a lady friend with a Boston terrier. I think he liked her better than the dog, but maybe it was a toss up. The Boston had a rough childhood with older dogs that beat up on him, and his attitude toward the rest of the canine world was, “it’s me or you, and I’m getting my licks in first.” He’d attack any other dog without provocation.

Dad would still let him off leash. I know Dad paid several ~$500 vet bills because of “accidents”. He still couldn’t bear to keep the Boston on a leash.

Later, he had another friend with another two dogs, and Dad loved these dogs too, taking them for walks, and again, he couldn’t bear to keep them on a leash. Until one day one of them ran out into traffic, was hit by a car and killed. Dad was sorry, but sorry in the sense of saying so, not in the sense of doing something about it.

I loved my Dad, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t always respect my Dad or like my Dad. To this day, thinking about this makes me feel sick in my stomach. And sad, deeply sad, because I just don’t understand it.

Sad, too, because I realize that one of his legacies is that I have never had a man in my life who has had my back. When the going got tough, I took care of it. I took care of us. Or I took care of me. I shut up and dealt. I didn’t like it, but after all, in my world growing up, men are never responsible for anything. They may be “sorry”, but they aren’t sorry. If I don’t toe the line, if I complain, if I insist then I nag, and I become a harridan like my mother. Since that’s the last thing in the world I want to do, I put up with a hell of a lot of shit.

A hell of a lot of shit.

I wonder if there were good men in my life, and I didn’t recognize them at the time. Or if I picked the best of what I had available to me (after college, never exactly a glut of suitors).

I wonder if I’ll ever find someone again. If I do if I’ll find myself again putting up with a hell of a lot of shit. Whether I will tell it to take a hike. Whether I have finally changed enough that if I let him in my life, that it will be better. If I will ever again find anyone at all.

I try not to focus on loneliness. On feeling unloved. None of that gets you anywhere but a pity party. Focus on the love you want to give, not the love you want to get. It works better that way. But days, some days, today, all of this tastes like ashes, and I want what I wanted, what I still want, and I know I will never get it, and I will have to make do.

And tomorrow I will wake up and make do better than anyone has ever made do before. But tonight, tonight, I am sad for all that was, and for all that is, and for all that will not be.

Mothers

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I found myself trying to explain my mother to a new friend today.

My mother was toxic. To so many of us. But how to capture that in words.

I remember a few (two?) nights when the whole family was up into the wee hours with threats with a knife and arguments and upset. I remember the last night I spent at home, when she was crying in the bathroom and my Dad told me she threatened him with a gun. I remember Dad coming to visit me at college with bruises that she gave him.

I remember wanting to kill myself when I was a young teen. Thinking I was crazy because things happened in my family that apparently only I saw or thought was wrong. I remember her being angry when I asked for a bra, because some other girls teased me and told me I needed one. I remember I don’t think I ever had one that fit.

So many other things, I shouldn’t start with this. I shouldn’t try to catalog them all, like a litany of complaints. Or should I try to write it down, so that I have a coherent picture for myself of what it was, both good and bad?

On the good side, I remember that she’d take us to all sorts of different parks in the area; they had names, usually with an animal. The Lion Park, the Turtle Park. I remember her taking us swimming every day in the summer, often meeting my cousins.

I spent years wanting to save my mother. When she died, I spent months grieving that I never would. I’ve spent many more years trying to understand where she was coming from, and trying to be a better person than she was. Trying to see the good things. Trying to make peace with the rest.

I am left with more questions than answers. Including about myself. I am 45 now, and I will never have children. So I don’t know whether I would have been a good mother, or whether all the negative things I saw modeled would come out of me under stress. I’ve seen them come out, sometimes; I’ve felt them want to come out in others. Moments of stopping myself and realizing that thought is a completely wrong thing to think and a worse thing to do.

Does everyone feel like this about their childhood, or is this a legacy for those of us who grew up in permanent insecurity? It makes you who you are, either by default, or by explicit choice to do something different. When you can see and understand what was happening. Because you don’t always see or understand; it sometimes takes years of mistakes before you get it.

That little niggling fear, toward the back of my brain. Am I really better? Really healthier? Really more wholesome for the other people in my life? I think so; I hope so. Or have I just been lucky to avoid the stresses that she succumbed to?

And this, Mom, is your legacy. I don’t think this is what you would have chosen, had you realized you had a choice. I hope it is not. For your sake. For mine.

And still struggling

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I think of the teaching award that I won last spring, and I think the universe must be laughing right now to see me struggle with my graduate class.

Homework is due at noon. Homework is due at noon because a few weeks ago, when homework was due at midnight, I had a student demand that I make time help him that afternoon. I didn’t have office hours scheduled, and I did have several other things that I had to do. I was angry enough to let my anger show. That’s not a productive situation.

One student has been having a hard time getting his homework in on time; even with a midnight deadline, things would come in at 3 am. I warned him in a comment on his last assignment that this should not continue. Guess who has his computer open in class today? “What are you doing with the computer?” I asked. “Working on my homework,” he replied. “No you aren’t. You need to pay attention in class. Put it away,” I said. He did (fortunately). I turned back to my lesson and got a few more sentences out. Then I sat down to talk about what just happened. And the related issue that none of my four students takes notes in class, and there have been several times when they missed something done in class that was relevant to homework or exam material. I don’t think I won that battle.

After class guess who asked for an extension on the homework. My short answer was “NO.” “Do you know why the answer is no?” The student looked puzzled. “Two reasons. One, there is a late policy for this class, which requires you to ask 12 hours ahead of the due date for an extension. You didn’t follow it. Two, you were just very disrespectful in class. And that adds up to a NO.”

And there I am. I know I need to do something to change things, one of which is to start expecting things like this to happen so that they don’t rankle me as much. I also have to figure out how to reeducate this group. I never expected to have to go through this with a graduate class; that’s certainly one of the challenges — I am fighting my own frame of reference as well as dealing with the behavior.

When I am geocaching and can’t find a cache, it is often because I am functionally fixed on how I think the cache should be hidden. This causes me to be blind to however it actually is hidden. When I am in that state, I know I need to think differently, but the problem is, I don’t know how. Sometimes it takes several trips back to a place before I have the insight. Sometimes I’ve had to get some help from someone else to show me the hiding spot to break me out of the fixed thinking patterns. I feel like that is exactly where I am at with this class right now.

Still Struggling

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I am still struggling with my graduate class. It is amazing that a class of four people could make me so miserable. Although many people would claim that we make ourselves miserable.

How am I making myself miserable?

  1. I am giving them my hard work, that they do not appreciate.
  2. I assign them what seem to me to be meaningful (and often nontrivial tasks), which they do not appreciate or like.
  3. I don’t give high grades when I see poor work, and I have to deal with the arguments.

I could simply

  1. Not try as hard. Can I restructure class so that I’m not working so hard for it?
  2. Give easier assignments.
  3. Give high grades all the time.

The first of those seems like a reasonable course of action, but I think my integrity has arguments with the next two.

I need to care less about what they do, what they think, and how they complain. Maybe if I can manage to not react to it, it will drop off. And think carefully about what the learning objectives should be, given the level and disinterest of the students. What can I make stick given who I am working with?

You can’t make everyone happy. And being in a group of really unhappy people can definitely rub off. Insulate myself better. And detach, detach, detach.

Solo Camping

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I remember the last time I camped alone in this tent. At least, I think it was the last time.

I camped at Colorado Bend State Park in Texas, in May, with the intent of doing a bike ride the next day. Before heading out, I stopped in Austin and I had lunch with my Ph.D. advisor.

We talked about many things; my unhappiness with my job, desire to try teaching. He said something insensitive; he’s infamous for being oblivious.

I asked about a professor who was my terror when I was working on my doctorate; a man who was known for pawing his female students, with the stereotypical black leather sofa in his office, who always wanted to shut the door and sit next to you on the sofa. Hella no, I opened his door wide, and I pulled over the hard wooden chair, but when it was time for my defense, I was worried that one would make trouble for me.

My advisor said he had no idea what I could be talking about when I said I thought that professor was creepy. All he could recall was that Prof. Creepy wanted to hire some unsatisfactory job candidates. I remember a lull or change in our conversation, broken perhaps 10 minutes later, when my advisor told me about Professor Creepy’s nuclear divorce when he, indeed, ran off with one of his female students, leaving his wife and kids high and dry. Professor Creepy went on to become the department chair at another august institution; I can’t imagine they found his performance satisfactory. I also don’t think my advisor connected his story to my comments, though I am certain that my comment connected some subconscious dots, bringing forth the story.

What I remember most about the camping is the explosive tears, the incredible feeling of being lost, of being stuck, of not being good enough and having no way to ever be good enough. Deep, deep, deep shame for being who I was, with only my abilities.

With little sleep, I didn’t go to the bike ride the next day.

There was mountain biking in the park, but after getting up and getting together, I ended up on a hiking rather than a biking trail. My frustration peaked.

It was unseasonably hot, and the campground had no showers. I swam a bit to clean up, but in the end, I just packed up and went home early, running away from that moment, that vision of myself, that truth.

I didn’t interact with my advisor again for 7-9 more years.

It was quite a few years before I came back to that park, newly in love with my then-companion. I remember a magical hike we had as we got lost trying to find a geocache. I have the pictures, and that happy memory.

Today, I find myself again alone in this tent. I am not thinking about trying teaching any more; I will start a tenure track position in the fall. If I had known what success I would have as a teacher, I might have started on this path sooner.

In the ensuing years, I have had deep disappointments, and I have had moments of great joy. Part of me is very very sad for the painful moments, and also angry for this part of my past. Part of me is deeply deeply grateful to be here, now, in this moment.

Semester Wrap-Up

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The semester comes to a close. My temper has been short lately. My patience has been short lately. It will be good to have a change and necessary to take a break.

What is it that makes this time of the semester so difficult for everyone? Part of it is, undoubtedly, sadness that we won’t much see this group of students again, since on the most part, we truly like them. Some of it is the high paperwork load that comes with wrapping up a semester. Some of it is the grade-grubbing and begging. I’d rather help students work hard and learn than give them grades that make them sad. But my job is to report what happened over the course of the semester, according to the rules laid out in the syllabus. There was the option of coming for help before the last week before the final exam.

I am also questioning myself. I made my final optional, but in order to insure that students came to class and learned the last material, I insisted on no unexcused absences for the last week and a 70% score or higher on the final homework. I think 3 failed to make the score on the final homework. One, in part, because he handed it in late. Another just did poorly. One of the two didn’t show up for the final. The second scored poorly pulling a borderline C down to a D in my class. A rule is a rule, and I know that it is part of my job to enforce rules. Though sometimes we make judgment calls on things. Let them walk away with a C and be done. The consequences of not knowing the material will catch up. Of course, sometimes that is the wrong thing, and it is better to accept responsibility for handing the consequences out rather than delaying it for some other instructor. Right. Wrong. Hard to tell. And maybe there is no right or wrong here, there just is what is.

Many students struggle with the concept that actions have consequences. Fair enough. But sometimes better to leave well enough alone. Also fair enough. Perhaps for next time, if where I am going to be teaching in the future allows optional finals, I will find a way to change how I notify or change the policy in a way that is gentler on everyone’s spirit.