The personal is political. And vice versa.

I put my caramel coloured shirt on the wrong way. I noticed while pouring myself a glass of water, and cannot be bothered to put it on right now.




Filling out forms is a bit of a nightmare, because I'm always afraid I'll write something that'll disqualify the wrong document. One little detail... Reminds me of Algebra exams, where invariably I would finish with flourish - after having written two x instead of two x squared. For someone who loves details in so many things I'm dangerously casual. So my endsem exam form is still tucked away in my notebook.

Thinking about the semester that's about to end I'm terribly disappointed. Not in myself. Careful and frequent analyses of the situation, and I'm convinced I've been getting a lot of really bad vibes off the two core courses. Correction: the way the professors have handled them. Yes, I'm criticising professors. I've been reading about education and thinking about it since I was in junior school; now that I'm in college, the real fun's just begun.

So it goes like this: Postcolonialism is exciting and vitally important, but there are too many texts, not enough theory, not enough time. Much of it is new to me, some of it I already knew, but as I see it, the point of this is to increase awareness and enable us to articulate. Instead, we've been going through subtle or not-so-subtle guilt therapy sessions. As for Literature and the Other Arts, our esteemed course leader's favourite hobby... wait, it's actually his profession... is to demean his students; his most visible tactic, to tell them to think for themselves but really expect them to agree with him on everything; his catchphrase, 'you should all know this by now'.

'The educational system demands of everyone alike that they have what it does not give.' -- [Pierre Bourdieu]

I'm not going to add a little disclaimer here - no offence meant! I'm no expert I'm just giving my opinion! Really he's the greatest guy ever! I'm going to say: since when was university teaching about telling students almost all the time that they're stupid, they're shallow, they don't know anything, even their 'own culture'? Why does he think we turn up for classes, participate even at the risk of being the target of yet another needless insult to our basic intelligence, bother to read up on topics not within the confines of the syllabus? Perhaps I'm alone in feeling this way. I hope I'm not, because that would be, well, doubly troubling.

Because there is something too easy about this brand of cynicism, this kind of reckless sarcasm. There's something loathesome and self-congratulatory about it. I'm not upset because I'm not doing fabulously this semester. I'm upset because these two courses are amazing, or would have been, and I could have finished my college experience remembering them above all others simply because of how radical they are. Clearly I won't. I've been painting more than reading. Thank you, professor, you've indirectly (oh, the blinding irony!) led me to take up again something I had neglected for years.



Being unempowered and brainwashed and loserly as I am, I shall end this post with a picture of the beautiful, always surprising Peter Murphy, because beauty is balm for the soul.



And yes, those are fishnets.