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So [said the doctor]. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes? --Philip Roth |
Tuesday, March 9, 1999 Peer Advisors I'm sorry, guys; I didn't expect to get this behind. The Journalist's Paradox at work, once again. It's at times like this that I think I would've been better off having dated links on my front page, rather than "today," "yesterday," and so on, which'd allow me to skip the occasional entry... but I know that if I did that, I'd be skipping a lot more entries, so perhaps it's just as well.
Anyway, there's plenty to write about. So, I got to my English 399 class only about ten minutes late, but was mostly lost, because the discussion centered around a piece by Adorno and Horkheimer that I didn't have, 'cause I hadn't yet gotten my copy of the readings from the copy shop. From there, I chatted with a classmate for a bit (mostly about my reasons for leaving the school paper), then spoke to a professor, then went to the copy shop and got my 472-page bundle of photocopied readings, and then backtracked to the campus cafeteria for lunch. I did not stalk anybody in the campus cafeteria. (Sorry; inside joke.) From there to the computer lab, to check my e-mail.
Hmmm. Checking my back entries, I realize that I need to give you a touch more background before I get to the next bit. Last Thursday, during a break from my art class, I was walking through the English department's side of the building, and ran into my English 399 professor. It occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea to talk to him, considering that I had turned in entries from my critical reading journal just twice, out of nine times I was supposed to do so. He'd been wondering about that, actually. So, yeah, I mentioned that I'd left the Quad -- mentioned as a symptom, not a cause of anything -- and that I wasn't writing the journal entries for his class, and wasn't doing too great in the other English class, and hated my philosophy class, and was at least doing okay in art, and didn't have a job, and I generally all but dissolved into a puddle of primordial ooze in his office. Okay, perhaps I'm overstating the case a bit. At any rate, somewhere along the line, the possibility of my checking out the campus peer advisors came up. I'd been to them a couple of years before, but that had been in reference to academic issues, rather than personal ones. But I agreed that it would probably be worth a try.
So, after checking my e-mail on Tuesday, I went down to the peer advisors. I walked in. "Can I help you?" asked the student at the desk. "I'm not sure," I replied. "Well, what are you here about?" she asked. "Basically, I'm stressed," I said. "Oh, okay," she said, handing me a card to fill out and taking my student ID. "Just a minute." About two minutes later, another student came and led me to a small office with a desk and two quite comfortable chairs. She started by asking if I'd mind if she tape-recorded the session, so she could review her own performance afterwards. I was fine with that, but it turned out that her batteries were dead, so that idea bit the dust. Anyway, for the next 45 minutes or so, I started tracing the outlines of everything currently weighing on me. I was still just getting started, with loose threads all over the place, when we had to stop, 'cause they were closing for the day. She asked if I'd be interested in seeing an actual counselor. Sure, if she thought it'd help, I replied. Fact is, I've wanted an actual shrink for awhile, but, like, can't afford one. So I have an appointment for 3 PM on Monday. Goodness knows if it'll actually help, but I figure it can't hurt, and is certainly worth a try.
From there, I went home, took a nap for an hour or so, and then went to the CleanSheets chat room, where I finally got to meet Heather, in a sense. We'd exchanged the very occasional e-mail in the past, but that hardly counted. Real-time interaction is different. And it left me with mixed feelings, in this case. On the one hand, it was fun chatting with her, but on the other hand, the limitations of the technology were frustrating. There's a limit to how fast one can type, you see. I found myself wishing I could talk to her in person. Oh, well. Anyway, from there, I wrote Monday's entry a day late, failed to write this one, traded some e-mail with Elaine, and, eventually, went to sleep.
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