I have a meeting later today with a former teacher, the one I had for my Culture and Society class. I originally reached out to a colleague and friend, Robin, to get her perspective. Since she heads up a totally different department she reasoned that finding someone within the graphics program would be better. Since I felt unable to talk to my teacher, another person that I trusted would be good.
After spending some time thinking about it I realized who better to ask than someone who has a degree in ethics? I emailed Marie yesterday asking if it would be possible to meet with her about the situation. She remembered me from her class back in September. That made me feel warm and fuzzy so I think this meeting will be what I’m hoping for.
Unbiased, non-confrontational, safe, open, honest.
After the meeting I think I will have a better understanding of not only my emotions, but how I want to move forward with the plagiarism situation.
I suppose “knowing what to do” is sort of silly. I’ve already started the homework for this week. I’m halfway through the exercise, part way through the reading, and have already written and posted for the group discussion. I’m going to keep going through with the class, so it’s sort of pointless to say, “I don’t know what I want to do.” I’m going to drop kick this course in the face because how dare it insult my honor.
I guess a more accurate statement is, “I don’t know what to do with these emotions.”
Do I want to hold onto these feelings of betrayal and hurt? Do I want to be angry every time I see this person’s face because he is now my enemy?
No. Not really. That sounds like a lot of effort, and I wish I could say that my instructor’s opinion doesn’t matter, but at the moment it does otherwise I wouldn’t still be in a tizzy over this. My work didn’t earn more than a cookie-cutter response. My work wasn’t truly looked at. At least I don’t think it was since nothing was mentioned about my creative brief which explained my thought process in depth. I feel slighted, and that’s what keeps stinging when I think of the situation.
Maybe with Marie’s perspective I can find acceptance with myself. I don’t like how I have made my instructor the target for my anger and hurt. I don’t like thinking negatively of a person, and I’ve started to use him specifically to personify the situation. He’s just doing his job, just like when I report suspicious files to Clavan when I think students are cheating.
According to this one specific rubric in this one particular moment in time this is what my file earned me. I get that. Logically, I have no feelings either way because it’s fact. Truth. And I know this grade, this situation, doesn’t define who I am.
Emotionally I’m still standing in the middle of my brain, a five year old child, crying over how, “It’s not fair.”
Jesus, could you just move past that phrase? Do I need to come over there and beat you with a dictionary so you can whine in a way that’s at least mentally stimulating? Maybe that will be a new game for me. Seeing how many different ways I can come with to say, “It’s not fair.” At least that would be constructive.
Anyway, the meeting is at 3pm, so I’m leaving here around 2 so I have time to bike there, cool off so I’m not a sweaty mess, and print a few things out to take to the meeting. I also want to make sure I have my files easily accessible so I can show Marie the work I did. Maybe all I need to a sympathetic ear. Someone within the program to say, “Yeah, that sucks. I’m sorry. But you know what? You’re still an awesome person who does good work. Keep it up. You’ll be ok.”
Positive reinforcement. So much better than, “We can pretend this didn’t happen or you can get expelled. The choice is yours.”
Out of all of the things that I see students do and get away with. Out of everyone with a crappy work ethic and poor time management skills and thoughtlessness and crappy attitudes… and I’m the one who get threatened with expulsion over something that’s so subjective that not even our legal system is exactly sure how to prosecute some of the cases. We really need better copy right laws…
Whole ‘nother tangent though. And I’m pretty done typing about this for now. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to finally meeting Marie. She was one of my favorite instructors so far.
I was super productive in lab yesterday. I had my handy-dandy notebook which I cleaned out. It used to be a Friday ritual. Go to my sports bar for lunch, clean my computer, clean my notebook, prep for the weekend, write a weekly recap. I haven’t done that in months now, mostly because I bike everywhere and I’m not going to bike after eating a heavy meal of wings. That sounds like a terribly horrific idea. I haven’t found a replacement routine though, and with all of the moving going on there really hasn’t been a normal week in a while. At least it doesn’t feel like it.
I’m enjoying the living situation. Mornings are quit. Hannah usually wakes up around 11am. At first things were a little tense. She’s extroverted and enjoys talking and socializing in the morning. She wants me to hangout in the living room while we both work on our computers. She wants to be “around people.”
The introvert in me didn’t know how to handle the change in the beginning. I assumed “being around people” meant constant talking. I assumed it meant that my morning time was gone forever and that I would never get silence. But that’s not how things are. If I sit in the living room we may talk for five to fifteen minutes, but then we fall into silence, Hannah working and me staring off into space, petting one of the cats, sipping my coffee. In general, enjoying the silence.
It also helps that since I go into work so late, Hannah leaves before me and I still get the true alone time that I want.
We’re all finding our rhythm. I think Hannah is learning to tone it down a bit, and I’m learning that not every social interaction is a death sentence.
Scarlet got a bath yesterday so she was an adorable ball of rage. She’s stumbling more and that hurts me to see. I want to be able to do something for her. I want her to not be in pain because I think she is. And this is going to take a depressing turn for a moment but these emotions are there and I need to spill them onto the page.
I’m worried that one day I’m going to take her to the vet and they are going to tell me she’s terminally ill, or something along those lines. I can see the situation in my head where I’m told that the humane thing to do would be to put her down, and my heart breaks at the thought. How could I make that decision? How could I knowingly end the life of my companion of 15 years? What type of person would that make me?
I’m worried that as the days keep passing by that she’ll have a harder time walking to the food and water dishes, that she won’t be able to jump up into her chair, which already takes a lot of effort from her. I’m worried she’ll hurt even more when I pick her up to place her in her sunny spot to bask. I’m worried she won’t be able to step over the small lip of the litter pan to use the restroom.
I’m worried that she’ll stroke out, or have some other horrific death and I’ll be there, watching, helpless, unable to ease her pain or take away her fear as it happens. I’m worried that it will happen while I’m away at work and she’ll be alone.
It’s a lot like how I fear for my mom now. This constant nagging the in back of my head that I can’t do anything with other than ignore, but it is a fear that’s always there. Every time my mom doesn’t answer the phone. Every time Scarlet stumbles. They’re reminders that the people (we’ll just say cats are people and keep going) I love are mortal and that I am powerless to change that fact.
I love them so much. So incredibly much. But everything has a balance and so when the time comes I know that there is going to be an equal amount of pain and I don’t know how I will survive it. Hannah asked me shortly after she moved in what I was going to do when Scarlet passed and I replied with, “I’m going to be depressed for a very long time.” Because that’s the truth. A part of me will die with her, and I know there are people out there who think that’s silly, stupid. It’s just a cat.
But she’s not, “just a cat.” Just like my mom isn’t,” just a person.” She’s my cat. She’s my mom. They are important to me. They have been there for me, and I don’t know how I’ll function when they’re not there anymore. And the little reminders of the inevitable are like daggers in my chest.
So yeah, that was a long depressing tangent. I’m more ok with these feelings of helpless mortality than I am with the feeling of having my honor spat upon though, so even though it sounds like I’m going to break apart, and I most likely will when it happens, I’ll be better able to deal with it because it’s life. It’s natural, and I’ll figure out how to keep going.
This past weekend was pretty awesome and busy. I mentioned a little bit about my thrift shopping and how I was a badass MF for finding an amazing microwave for $15. I really like the dish set I got as well. They’re dark blue and black dishes with a mezzo-American design on them. I got two shelves and a spice rack as well. One of the shelves I drilled holes into and added hooks to make my own key ring shelf since Trevor owns the one that we’ve been using at the apartment. I felt pretty savvy for being able to visualize it and then turn it into reality.
Zane and I also went to Walmart for most of the grocery shopping and more apartment stuff. I got the Green+Life pot set. I’ve had the skillet set for a while now, and I absolutely love them. They’re ceramic skillets so they clean super, ridiculously easy while still being a healthy cooking option.
I try not to be “that guy (girl?)” who shoves my thoughts onto other people. So while I am way more health conscious than I was when I first moved out of my mom’s place I try to keep it to myself mostly. I’ll make my opinion known in a conversation if it comes up, but I don’t go around poo-pooing on other people for not having the same mentality as me.
I did some research when I was first in the market for dishware, and it led me to having a belief that cast iron and ceramic are the best ways to go. After testing the Green+Life skillets I can say that I love the brand and that for the past year, if not longer, they have held up wonderfully and that when given the chance to get the pot set I pounced on it so hard, clinging it to sort of like this…
I think we all know I have issues though, so it’s cool.
We also got a pretty amazing bathroom set. The curtain is a beautiful bright green, yellow, and brown color palette, with matching curtain hangers in the shape of leaves. We got a gray memory foam bath mat to go with it. We would have gotten two, ok… I would have gotten two. One for in front of the shower and one for in front of the sink, but there was only one mat. I’m going to see if there are more in stock over the weekend since I really would enjoy having another one.
I also want to take a second to say having a walk-in shower is amazing and I didn’t realize I missed having one in my life. It made bathing Scarlet so much easier.
The room is coming along. Zane still has two boxes to go through but our weekends have been so busy that I haven’t wanted to bother him about it. If I’m tired by the end of the day I know he is, and the same for during the week. After dealing with people all day I know he doesn’t want to spend a lot of time going through papers by himself, and I don’t get home until 1am to keep him company. I was lucky to get and grateful for the 15 minutes of quality time I got last night. And waking up at 6:30 this morning got me another 10 minutes. I miss him and it’s only Tuesday… Lame…
Zane was super awesome and did the dishes for me last night.
Not really anything else to say at the moment. I’ve had breakfast. About to be done with my blog… I need to put the clothes away still but since it’s nice and bright outside I’m pretty sure I’m awake and ready to take on the day. I may go to the gym before my meeting.
Oh. I guess that’s something else that happened. I went to the gym on Saturday and tired a new Nike Training Club routine. It was a HIIT workout, so it was only 10 minutes, but damn, that was an intense 10 minutes, and afterwards I did all of my thrift shopping.
I also had a conversation with RB on the phone. Maybe I’ll start using SirRandius as his code name. It’s complicated still but I’m glad we were able to salvage our friendship. We still have awkward moments, or at least I do because I’m finicky, but I think it’s getting better. It’s been over a year. You would think I would be able to not be an emotional mess…
Anyway, I guess I should go make my to-do list so I can be ready for my meeting and figure out what else I want to get done today. I don’t know why, but I feel like today will be alright. I feel like I’ll be ok.
Warrior Freya 