Man molests child. Man goes to prison and suffers abuse from inmates. Man goes to in-house counseling services.
As man serves out his sentence child goes through her own counseling and coping. Child explores the dark side of adolescence. Child becomes a teen, and begins to explore her own sexuality. Teen cuts herself. Teen does drugs. Teen realizes that after man who molested her, she hasn't allowed to let anyone touch her psychically.
Teen contacts man in prison. Man in prison is grateful that he has a pen pal. Teen doesn't reveal her identity nor how she tracked down her molester. Man is free and meets up with teen. Teen strap attacks man. Man's prison experience accustoms him to being sodomized.
Teen's strap-on dildo contains a plastic softener substance known to mimic certain hormones. Man begins growing breasts. Now a woman, the teen suffers a double mastectomy from breast cancer. Woman has no tits. Man has them. Man takes it in his butt, woman delivers him this using her cheap strap-on with the plastic softener known to mimic certain hormones. Man's body continues on its confused existence. Man then contracts prostate cancer. Destitute and dying, the woman accompanies him. As he lays dying, she reveals her true identity. The man views this as his penance. Man is buried with the woman's strap-on. Now middle aged and sexually militant, the widowed woman who married her sex-offender tries to start over. She cannot.
Woman who lost her innocence to a child molester. Woman her lost her tits to cancer. Woman who lost her husband to cancer becomes a killer. She begins hunting down the executives for industries that produce carcinogenic chemicals. She establishes herself as a dominatrix with a very select clientele. She plays the submissive role in order to get some of the high-powered execs into her home. Her tit-less body allows her to play the child role. She relives her violent past. She turns on each of the executives that she's lured in and rapes them with a special strap-on, one that causes serious internal injuries resulting in the bleeding death of each executive that she lures to her home.
Monday, July 26, 2010
The psychosexual relationship to nature
Slavoj Zizek has made hay out of the environmentalism movement. He calls it the dominant ideology of our time. He likens our views concerning the ill consequences of not respecting the environment to the fall from grace contained in the genesis narrative. He uses mobilizes religious imagery to support his claim that ideological analysis is the proper way to frame environmentalism in popular discourse. Let's think of an alternative.
I see it as a sexual relationship. I see a psychosexual connection between our activities in relation to nature and nature's own actions upon our body. We are natural organisms. Nature passes through our bodies, and our range of psychosexual behaviors focus on these passage ways. The mouth, the anus, the penis, the vagina, all connect us to natural concerns such as rhythm, pollution, and cleanliness.
If our connection to nature has a pyschosexual profile then the dominant trope is sadomasochism. We're either inflicting pain and hurt upon nature or it's visiting that same pain upon us. An endless cycle of give and take occurs. Nature negates our comfort, and we oppose this negation through the construction of microenvironments. Boats, cars, planes, our homes are all microenvironments through which we attempt to keep some things out. We attempt to live upon the earth on our terms. Only occasionally do we have to endure the discomfort and dangers of extreme cold and heat. We almost always have a microenvironment to which we can retreat.
We fuck the environment and get fucked by the environment.
I see it as a sexual relationship. I see a psychosexual connection between our activities in relation to nature and nature's own actions upon our body. We are natural organisms. Nature passes through our bodies, and our range of psychosexual behaviors focus on these passage ways. The mouth, the anus, the penis, the vagina, all connect us to natural concerns such as rhythm, pollution, and cleanliness.
If our connection to nature has a pyschosexual profile then the dominant trope is sadomasochism. We're either inflicting pain and hurt upon nature or it's visiting that same pain upon us. An endless cycle of give and take occurs. Nature negates our comfort, and we oppose this negation through the construction of microenvironments. Boats, cars, planes, our homes are all microenvironments through which we attempt to keep some things out. We attempt to live upon the earth on our terms. Only occasionally do we have to endure the discomfort and dangers of extreme cold and heat. We almost always have a microenvironment to which we can retreat.
We fuck the environment and get fucked by the environment.
Monday, July 12, 2010
a place to write
I just need a place to write. I need a place where I can legitimize my connection to things, the world, people. I suppose other activities exist, which help solidify this connection. I chose writing, or writing chose me.
Some activities, when deeply engaged in them, reveal the secret of invention. Kairos is a word that notes how events are gauged from the vantage point of the not-so-distant future. The occurrence of events and the actions, which set these events in motion, are incidental. Yes, we may gauge an effect in our actions upon our immediate world. The world also pushes back in its casual revealing before us. This idea is nothing new, and I'm certainly not sure why I'm rehashing it in a lighter format.
I need a place to aim. I need a place where I can focus my energies into a workable semblance of creativity. I hang my ideas on words, in their arrangement, their spoken cadence, the meaningfulness for me. What is it that may bring another to read my words are unknown to me. Even if they find intrinsic appeal, it's a foreign experience.
I generally hate me. I am always directing scorn at my appearance. So much have I done this that I wish myself invisible in social settings, by erasing my body from its own native sociality. This has the effect of mystifying my own secretions and excretions. In wishing me gone, I've come to view the parts of myself that I cannot wish away as pathologies. They confirm my fundamental lack of control.
I ache for a deep friendship. Two bodies touching, trusting one another. Yet I cannot accept my own body. This complicates relationships because my pathology spills over into a general grouchiness. I vacillate between closeness and distance. I become irritable. I burn with desire, then I burn with hate. I am a ball of tightly wound emotions. I stand alone. I walk alone. I eat alone. I remain ethical and moral in my vacuum. With nothing to test me, nothing to tease me, nothing to tempt me, nothing to please me I remain inert, a dusty relic of my flourishing humanity, my hygge, my happiness and comfort among others. I eat alone. I wash my own dishes and my own clothes. I pick up after myself alone. With no one to complain and no one to complain to I do what I please when I please. I have utter freedom and no wills to oppose, no human laws to break by living alone. I like being alone. I enjoy its confirming absence. Some embrace the oneness of it all. I embrace the none-ness.
Why construct a religion, a daily routine out of identity with the none? That would be peeling back the onion. I don't think many want to get deep with themselves or contemplate the things and the nothings they echo in song. I sit alone, not wholly understanding of my religion nor am I much of a good follower. I'd be the first to erect the laws and the first to break them. I dig deep, and still I cannot embrace the meaninglessness of life. I cannot necessarily accept the tranquility of life's maddening unraveling of my own beliefs. Over time, we lose this battle and then we die. It's a strange way of bringing the nothing into one's life. My grim reaper, my harbinger of the encroaching chaos that will envelop all of us in the end is in my harboring this fugitive called nothingness. It's the outlaw in this story, and while I feed it it pays no kind favor back. It's motives are incidental, and I better watch my step around it. It will destroy me in the end. All I can do is to lean how to avoid getting caught in its tango. It's a dance I will never win.
I'm thinking of a woman I know who is perfectly unattainable and also unavoidable. My throat is tight from anxiety, longing, and stress about her familiarity. I fear judgment. I fear the evaluative stare of others. It's character is hidden within the datum of interaction mostly cobbled into the nonverbal actions. The body once again reveals its hand in this dance between things. We are all things, and I place such undo emphasis on significance. But my poetry is just a distraction, window dressing for the real identity, the thing-ness and otherness of one another and of oneself. This thing-ness promotes an awareness of a there-ness without offering an explanation for existence. I am somewhere in a room. Shame shoots through it like a ray of light, and from this light cast upon my presence I extract meaning. I cannot explain myself. I just am, and for that alone I am ashamed.
Some activities, when deeply engaged in them, reveal the secret of invention. Kairos is a word that notes how events are gauged from the vantage point of the not-so-distant future. The occurrence of events and the actions, which set these events in motion, are incidental. Yes, we may gauge an effect in our actions upon our immediate world. The world also pushes back in its casual revealing before us. This idea is nothing new, and I'm certainly not sure why I'm rehashing it in a lighter format.
I need a place to aim. I need a place where I can focus my energies into a workable semblance of creativity. I hang my ideas on words, in their arrangement, their spoken cadence, the meaningfulness for me. What is it that may bring another to read my words are unknown to me. Even if they find intrinsic appeal, it's a foreign experience.
I generally hate me. I am always directing scorn at my appearance. So much have I done this that I wish myself invisible in social settings, by erasing my body from its own native sociality. This has the effect of mystifying my own secretions and excretions. In wishing me gone, I've come to view the parts of myself that I cannot wish away as pathologies. They confirm my fundamental lack of control.
I ache for a deep friendship. Two bodies touching, trusting one another. Yet I cannot accept my own body. This complicates relationships because my pathology spills over into a general grouchiness. I vacillate between closeness and distance. I become irritable. I burn with desire, then I burn with hate. I am a ball of tightly wound emotions. I stand alone. I walk alone. I eat alone. I remain ethical and moral in my vacuum. With nothing to test me, nothing to tease me, nothing to tempt me, nothing to please me I remain inert, a dusty relic of my flourishing humanity, my hygge, my happiness and comfort among others. I eat alone. I wash my own dishes and my own clothes. I pick up after myself alone. With no one to complain and no one to complain to I do what I please when I please. I have utter freedom and no wills to oppose, no human laws to break by living alone. I like being alone. I enjoy its confirming absence. Some embrace the oneness of it all. I embrace the none-ness.
Why construct a religion, a daily routine out of identity with the none? That would be peeling back the onion. I don't think many want to get deep with themselves or contemplate the things and the nothings they echo in song. I sit alone, not wholly understanding of my religion nor am I much of a good follower. I'd be the first to erect the laws and the first to break them. I dig deep, and still I cannot embrace the meaninglessness of life. I cannot necessarily accept the tranquility of life's maddening unraveling of my own beliefs. Over time, we lose this battle and then we die. It's a strange way of bringing the nothing into one's life. My grim reaper, my harbinger of the encroaching chaos that will envelop all of us in the end is in my harboring this fugitive called nothingness. It's the outlaw in this story, and while I feed it it pays no kind favor back. It's motives are incidental, and I better watch my step around it. It will destroy me in the end. All I can do is to lean how to avoid getting caught in its tango. It's a dance I will never win.
I'm thinking of a woman I know who is perfectly unattainable and also unavoidable. My throat is tight from anxiety, longing, and stress about her familiarity. I fear judgment. I fear the evaluative stare of others. It's character is hidden within the datum of interaction mostly cobbled into the nonverbal actions. The body once again reveals its hand in this dance between things. We are all things, and I place such undo emphasis on significance. But my poetry is just a distraction, window dressing for the real identity, the thing-ness and otherness of one another and of oneself. This thing-ness promotes an awareness of a there-ness without offering an explanation for existence. I am somewhere in a room. Shame shoots through it like a ray of light, and from this light cast upon my presence I extract meaning. I cannot explain myself. I just am, and for that alone I am ashamed.
Friday, July 2, 2010
looking up the winners
The winners are the people that completed their degrees. I'm one of the losers. I looked up one of the winners today. She works in Denver. She does statistical modeling for some company called Corona. I'm sure she lives comfortably in the city with the purported best dating scene for 20-35 year-old singles. I wouldn't know much about dating scenes, although my last date was when I lived in that area. Muncie, Indiana was certainly not a place to find a lady or even to settle down. As I've noted before, a brown aura hung over that town. I'm still stained.
My aura is dead. It fizzled out. As I've said, I'm one of the losers, and I live eternally in the penumbra of my past failures. I cannot come to terms with my quitting, nor could I come to terms with my finishing either. I was in between. Now I barely get by, and it has its romantic or exciting moments. Mostly though I find myself cooking up deranged fantasies and living by them. I find reasons to remain alone. I find reasons to alienate my few friends. My cat moans endlessly, and I continue to ignore her. That's my life. I scribble into this little diario on occasion but have nothing truly life-changing to say. Here was my recent insight.
People laugh at my jokes for reasons unknown to me. I make the jokes for reasons that are known to me, but their appeal for others is unknown to me. I accept that they are a mystery to me and the in-between I bridge with a joke is a mystery. I'm giving up my jokes. I'm in a sour mood and I sorely want a life make-over. I want to get serious, get a job, and move the fuck out of this place. I don't care where I go. I just want to head somewhere else. I need to mix up my life, and acquiring a job would help me do so. I've used this excuse before. I told myself in November that I had some writing plans. I've written 0 sentences in completion of those plans. Six months in and I've nothing to show for this year--another wash in the sand, another fragmented kelp frond cast into the surf, pocked with cigarette filters, drowned in the echoes of last night's party. Why do I write? Why do I propose? I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Even my half-sister's hopes for my employment have gone unanswered. Nothing. I haven't talked to her since she came into town and treated me to a brunch at Casa Gallardo. That was a pleasant moment. Now I stand here, no prospects, and a cryptic message that went unanswered. "My boss wants you to do something." Then I called her back on the wrong day and she never returned the call. I know what her boss wants me to do, get my shit out of her inbox.
I look up the winners because I'm not one of them. They're the context for my own sorry text, a tear drop serves as my period. A frown functions as a quotation. A moan fills in for the vowels and a sob for the consonants. I stand around wondering why every time that I get this way nobody wants to entertain it. They just tell me to suck it up and shut the fuck up. I want to stab a fucker in the heart for trying to tell me how to live my life. I live it how I please, and I've resigned to living alone because I refused to have any affinity with the dupes and the sleepwalking wounded that surround me. I'm not sleeping. I'm well awake and scared shitless like a mouse in a sticky trap.
I write myself in circles and seek out those who write what I wish I could do for myself. I sit down with any project and lose all interest in the doing. There's a measure of anxiety that accompanies the act of writing for an audience, be it a teacher or a panel of experts on a topic. I'm a phony. I'm a fake. I'm speaking into the air. Is there anyone there that understands my snowflake unique bullshit tripe of a message? I wished that girl in the audience did. Man, she was so beautiful to perceive. Her friend, a panel member, was a bit rough at the edges, and asked me the time. I guess that was her attempt at having me behold her. I beheld her mind. She was all rough otherwise, but like a busted up looking tin can, the contents remained glistening and nutritive. She had ideas, not botulism. She's gone now too. I'm certain that she has her PhD and either lives stateside or moved back to that country that her accent revealed as something Eastern European.
All things are 'no' things. They are overdetermined by their 'not this'-ness. I'm a 'no' thing to any other thing. Things are things. That's the only symmetry a thing shares with another, the logic of naming. The thing will always buffet any attempt for the word, the logos to shape it. All the logos and the thing can do in concert is to motivate my own attitudes concerning the thing, its moral character, its consequential nature.
My aura is dead. It fizzled out. As I've said, I'm one of the losers, and I live eternally in the penumbra of my past failures. I cannot come to terms with my quitting, nor could I come to terms with my finishing either. I was in between. Now I barely get by, and it has its romantic or exciting moments. Mostly though I find myself cooking up deranged fantasies and living by them. I find reasons to remain alone. I find reasons to alienate my few friends. My cat moans endlessly, and I continue to ignore her. That's my life. I scribble into this little diario on occasion but have nothing truly life-changing to say. Here was my recent insight.
People laugh at my jokes for reasons unknown to me. I make the jokes for reasons that are known to me, but their appeal for others is unknown to me. I accept that they are a mystery to me and the in-between I bridge with a joke is a mystery. I'm giving up my jokes. I'm in a sour mood and I sorely want a life make-over. I want to get serious, get a job, and move the fuck out of this place. I don't care where I go. I just want to head somewhere else. I need to mix up my life, and acquiring a job would help me do so. I've used this excuse before. I told myself in November that I had some writing plans. I've written 0 sentences in completion of those plans. Six months in and I've nothing to show for this year--another wash in the sand, another fragmented kelp frond cast into the surf, pocked with cigarette filters, drowned in the echoes of last night's party. Why do I write? Why do I propose? I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Even my half-sister's hopes for my employment have gone unanswered. Nothing. I haven't talked to her since she came into town and treated me to a brunch at Casa Gallardo. That was a pleasant moment. Now I stand here, no prospects, and a cryptic message that went unanswered. "My boss wants you to do something." Then I called her back on the wrong day and she never returned the call. I know what her boss wants me to do, get my shit out of her inbox.
I look up the winners because I'm not one of them. They're the context for my own sorry text, a tear drop serves as my period. A frown functions as a quotation. A moan fills in for the vowels and a sob for the consonants. I stand around wondering why every time that I get this way nobody wants to entertain it. They just tell me to suck it up and shut the fuck up. I want to stab a fucker in the heart for trying to tell me how to live my life. I live it how I please, and I've resigned to living alone because I refused to have any affinity with the dupes and the sleepwalking wounded that surround me. I'm not sleeping. I'm well awake and scared shitless like a mouse in a sticky trap.
I write myself in circles and seek out those who write what I wish I could do for myself. I sit down with any project and lose all interest in the doing. There's a measure of anxiety that accompanies the act of writing for an audience, be it a teacher or a panel of experts on a topic. I'm a phony. I'm a fake. I'm speaking into the air. Is there anyone there that understands my snowflake unique bullshit tripe of a message? I wished that girl in the audience did. Man, she was so beautiful to perceive. Her friend, a panel member, was a bit rough at the edges, and asked me the time. I guess that was her attempt at having me behold her. I beheld her mind. She was all rough otherwise, but like a busted up looking tin can, the contents remained glistening and nutritive. She had ideas, not botulism. She's gone now too. I'm certain that she has her PhD and either lives stateside or moved back to that country that her accent revealed as something Eastern European.
All things are 'no' things. They are overdetermined by their 'not this'-ness. I'm a 'no' thing to any other thing. Things are things. That's the only symmetry a thing shares with another, the logic of naming. The thing will always buffet any attempt for the word, the logos to shape it. All the logos and the thing can do in concert is to motivate my own attitudes concerning the thing, its moral character, its consequential nature.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
the gun
The gun leads to an ad hoc re-evaluation of life. A man can shoot someone for robbing his home, his car, his self. Regardless of the value of the items this man has in his car, his house, or on his person, with a gun he decides that these things are worth more than the robber. He discharges his firearm into the robber rendering him a lifeless thing.
But what is his now lifeless body worth? Was he a smoker? Maybe his lungs would make good donor material. What was his blood type? He's a veritable trove of organs and tissue up for grabs. Better put him on ice gunslinger, you've made yourself a killing on the body part black market.
But what is his now lifeless body worth? Was he a smoker? Maybe his lungs would make good donor material. What was his blood type? He's a veritable trove of organs and tissue up for grabs. Better put him on ice gunslinger, you've made yourself a killing on the body part black market.
Monday, June 7, 2010
requiem for an avatar
I don't think I knew you Zorn, but goodbye.
I had a similar set of reasons behind bowing out of raiding/playing WoW. To be honest, the time I spent playing is now spent aimlessly "dicking around." Sure, I've used plenty of the 7-11 raid time during the week to do work, write ideas down, paint house, party like a rock star, snort blow, blow money, make money, smoke pot, cook food, drink beer, hang with buds, do shots, stare at chicks, dodge bullets, read comments under the yahoo news blurbs, debate Zionism, entertain conspiracies, discuss algorithms of oppression, apply for jobs, retool resume, stare at CV, ponder the future, consider suicide, fantasize about chicks I was too chickenshit to ask on dates, deliver one-liners, take naps, grade papers, enter class, discuss class, write jokes, do HITs on Mturk, lose my ability to do HITs on Mturk, blog, date girls, date myself, play flash games, dominate the world in Civ1, lean against the wall, weep, sweep, mop, do push-ups, ride my bike, walk to the liquor store, wave at my neighbors, act discrete, force people logging in here to be my audience, forcing others to be my audience, screaming, singing, fantasizing, dancing alone, jerking off, etc.
The game has it's own justifiable structure: time killed in game amounts to some tangible, albeit digital, gain. You gain faction, you gain gold, you earn gear, you learn fights, you overcome challenges. Man, if only my life had a progress bar at the bottom of my retinal HUD. Alas, it does not. A stack of read books surely doesn't have that same sense of 'leveling' that the game environment creates.
So I sit on the outside looking in. I sit on the sidelines cheering you on. I visit newegg and piece together comps. like I go to wowhead and experiment with talent builds.
I justify playing like I justify not playing--neither really stacks up. Hell, I'm not sure a wife, kids, family, or security clearance and 'burn after reading' instructions would justify not entertaining the idea of playing this game forever. Maybe losing my arms playing with rocket fuel would...
The game can be fun, the kids are all right, socializing under the cloak of an avatar is intoxicating, earning reputation is cool; yes, it gets old. I called the sustenance of this game like eating marshmallow Peeps--oh so sweet but leaving you empty. I take that back. I think the game invites you to the challenge and once you've met the majority of the challenges the mystique fades--for some anyway. You bide your time, a new patch comes out, and you start all over with new or retooled talents, new dungeons, new factions, new gear, new challenges. To see the endless repetition in this game as a reason to quit invites a similar critique of one's life, career, and obligations to family, friends, flock, or country. None of them end, and a lot of the rituals we engage in to fulfill our duties to friends, family, coworkers, bosses, country are repetitive, endlessly repetitive.
So we drink, drug, shoot silhouettes, shoot up, drop out, fight, fuck, scream, sing, play guitar, drums, or rub one out.
I had a mystical experience once on pot. I witnessed the death of family and pets and mourned them all. I cried, rocked back and forth, and sang along to the Pavement CD that I had put on before turning the lights out. For a long time thereafter my life had significance, my actions had purpose. Instead of dicking around and hating on myself I told myself I could do anything. I turned my D in Trig. to an A in analytic geometry. I aced every exam. I went to college and aced all of that crap. I learned a lot, found permanence in molecular bonds, and mistook it for more mysticism.
Then I had another mystical experience, once again fueled by pot. I got high and saw an ST Voyager episode, Deadlock, and once again decided that school was the wrong idea. I wanted to be a writer. I had this huge sci-fidea. When I approached my advisor to discuss next year's courses I told her that I was done going to school here. Of course this lead to a huge intervention on the part of my family. I conceded and finished my degree, and I'm still paying off my loans. Some of the people who motivated me are dead now. I never honored my grandfather's wish to dance with the bride at my wedding. I never married.
That was my last mystical experience. I was 19. Now I'm 33 and the reality principle's peristaltic undulations move me along.
I had a similar set of reasons behind bowing out of raiding/playing WoW. To be honest, the time I spent playing is now spent aimlessly "dicking around." Sure, I've used plenty of the 7-11 raid time during the week to do work, write ideas down, paint house, party like a rock star, snort blow, blow money, make money, smoke pot, cook food, drink beer, hang with buds, do shots, stare at chicks, dodge bullets, read comments under the yahoo news blurbs, debate Zionism, entertain conspiracies, discuss algorithms of oppression, apply for jobs, retool resume, stare at CV, ponder the future, consider suicide, fantasize about chicks I was too chickenshit to ask on dates, deliver one-liners, take naps, grade papers, enter class, discuss class, write jokes, do HITs on Mturk, lose my ability to do HITs on Mturk, blog, date girls, date myself, play flash games, dominate the world in Civ1, lean against the wall, weep, sweep, mop, do push-ups, ride my bike, walk to the liquor store, wave at my neighbors, act discrete, force people logging in here to be my audience, forcing others to be my audience, screaming, singing, fantasizing, dancing alone, jerking off, etc.
The game has it's own justifiable structure: time killed in game amounts to some tangible, albeit digital, gain. You gain faction, you gain gold, you earn gear, you learn fights, you overcome challenges. Man, if only my life had a progress bar at the bottom of my retinal HUD. Alas, it does not. A stack of read books surely doesn't have that same sense of 'leveling' that the game environment creates.
So I sit on the outside looking in. I sit on the sidelines cheering you on. I visit newegg and piece together comps. like I go to wowhead and experiment with talent builds.
I justify playing like I justify not playing--neither really stacks up. Hell, I'm not sure a wife, kids, family, or security clearance and 'burn after reading' instructions would justify not entertaining the idea of playing this game forever. Maybe losing my arms playing with rocket fuel would...
The game can be fun, the kids are all right, socializing under the cloak of an avatar is intoxicating, earning reputation is cool; yes, it gets old. I called the sustenance of this game like eating marshmallow Peeps--oh so sweet but leaving you empty. I take that back. I think the game invites you to the challenge and once you've met the majority of the challenges the mystique fades--for some anyway. You bide your time, a new patch comes out, and you start all over with new or retooled talents, new dungeons, new factions, new gear, new challenges. To see the endless repetition in this game as a reason to quit invites a similar critique of one's life, career, and obligations to family, friends, flock, or country. None of them end, and a lot of the rituals we engage in to fulfill our duties to friends, family, coworkers, bosses, country are repetitive, endlessly repetitive.
So we drink, drug, shoot silhouettes, shoot up, drop out, fight, fuck, scream, sing, play guitar, drums, or rub one out.
I had a mystical experience once on pot. I witnessed the death of family and pets and mourned them all. I cried, rocked back and forth, and sang along to the Pavement CD that I had put on before turning the lights out. For a long time thereafter my life had significance, my actions had purpose. Instead of dicking around and hating on myself I told myself I could do anything. I turned my D in Trig. to an A in analytic geometry. I aced every exam. I went to college and aced all of that crap. I learned a lot, found permanence in molecular bonds, and mistook it for more mysticism.
Then I had another mystical experience, once again fueled by pot. I got high and saw an ST Voyager episode, Deadlock, and once again decided that school was the wrong idea. I wanted to be a writer. I had this huge sci-fidea. When I approached my advisor to discuss next year's courses I told her that I was done going to school here. Of course this lead to a huge intervention on the part of my family. I conceded and finished my degree, and I'm still paying off my loans. Some of the people who motivated me are dead now. I never honored my grandfather's wish to dance with the bride at my wedding. I never married.
That was my last mystical experience. I was 19. Now I'm 33 and the reality principle's peristaltic undulations move me along.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Contacting the Ombuds Office
I've decided that elements of my current employer fall within the range of labor violations, so I contacted the University Ombudsman's office.
I teach a class with 12 students. I grade their assignments within a reasonable time frame.
The next class I receive has 18 students. Two drop the class. I grade the 16 remaining students' assignments under greater time constraints.
This simple comparison is an example of the impact that manipulating the classroom size has upon my workload. A class with 4 more students than 12 is 33% larger, and the class of 16 provides no more financial compensation than the class of 12. I'm paid by the contract. Class size isn't indicated in the contract, just its course number, title, and the dates that it will be in session. Class size isn't a condition of the contract; my behavior is. I sign the contract digitally as recognition that I will adhere to the standards of conduct, which inhere to the contract. Sticky situation.
I have choices about how I conduct the class of 16 to maintain the same workload. To do so will be at the student's expense. The University of Phoenix charges undergraduate students pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Business and Management through the Online campus $530 per credit hour plus an $85 fee for access to books and the library. Since the course I teach fulfills three credit hours, a student pays $1675 to the University to earn three credits toward the fulfillment of a degree; that is, if they pass the course. A class of 16 nets the University $26,800. Of that, the University pays me less than one thousand dollars. The university overwhelmingly gains in this transaction.
But I add value. I'm the non-machine counterpart who operates as the cog. I'm the spinning wheel, the algorithm, the force-relation mechanism, the contraption. I'm the obstacle course, which the student must pass for educational credit. The University grades the cost of individual credit hours, using a scale that increases with each successive degree. A Bachelor's degree costs more per credit hour than the Associate's degree. The value inherent in the University's model is the level of the degree. The value is in the outcome. The value I add to this outcome stems from the unpredictability that I add to it. I have a choice that isn't merely governed by a feedback mechanism or how I choose to use the University's feedback feature. I have a choice irrespective of the structure of the class on how to discuss the content of the class. Unpredictability in a structured environment is its operational character. The value of unpredictability lies in the depth that it brings to the flattened, serially reproduced content of the course.
I get paid regardless of what I add to the course, within reason. My contract requires me to conduct myself professionally in the classroom. How the University monitors my adherence to this contract is reflected in the minimums of post count and weekly activity. The algorithms that track this also search my posts for text strings flagged as 'questionable content' in order to track my conduct.
Alas, what's missing is that the credits, credit hours, and the final degree are what contains the value. The diploma is the official document, which opens doors, grants raises, and expands the value of the employee. Businesses set this value through their practices of awarding those with a higher degree accordingly. Students seek this value by pursuing a degree. The University sets up shop, gets accreditation, and hires me to teach a course. My course is just a stop on the journey to the student-worker's degree and diploma. But I'm the real content. The diploma is a symbol, a synecdoche of what I provided for the student. I graded the student's papers. I graded the student's tests. I provided the student with reinforcement, guidance, and an expert voice in the discussion of organizational communication. I'm the value in the education. I don't grant the student the raise though; the diploma does.
I teach a class with 12 students. I grade their assignments within a reasonable time frame.
The next class I receive has 18 students. Two drop the class. I grade the 16 remaining students' assignments under greater time constraints.
This simple comparison is an example of the impact that manipulating the classroom size has upon my workload. A class with 4 more students than 12 is 33% larger, and the class of 16 provides no more financial compensation than the class of 12. I'm paid by the contract. Class size isn't indicated in the contract, just its course number, title, and the dates that it will be in session. Class size isn't a condition of the contract; my behavior is. I sign the contract digitally as recognition that I will adhere to the standards of conduct, which inhere to the contract. Sticky situation.
I have choices about how I conduct the class of 16 to maintain the same workload. To do so will be at the student's expense. The University of Phoenix charges undergraduate students pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Business and Management through the Online campus $530 per credit hour plus an $85 fee for access to books and the library. Since the course I teach fulfills three credit hours, a student pays $1675 to the University to earn three credits toward the fulfillment of a degree; that is, if they pass the course. A class of 16 nets the University $26,800. Of that, the University pays me less than one thousand dollars. The university overwhelmingly gains in this transaction.
But I add value. I'm the non-machine counterpart who operates as the cog. I'm the spinning wheel, the algorithm, the force-relation mechanism, the contraption. I'm the obstacle course, which the student must pass for educational credit. The University grades the cost of individual credit hours, using a scale that increases with each successive degree. A Bachelor's degree costs more per credit hour than the Associate's degree. The value inherent in the University's model is the level of the degree. The value is in the outcome. The value I add to this outcome stems from the unpredictability that I add to it. I have a choice that isn't merely governed by a feedback mechanism or how I choose to use the University's feedback feature. I have a choice irrespective of the structure of the class on how to discuss the content of the class. Unpredictability in a structured environment is its operational character. The value of unpredictability lies in the depth that it brings to the flattened, serially reproduced content of the course.
I get paid regardless of what I add to the course, within reason. My contract requires me to conduct myself professionally in the classroom. How the University monitors my adherence to this contract is reflected in the minimums of post count and weekly activity. The algorithms that track this also search my posts for text strings flagged as 'questionable content' in order to track my conduct.
Alas, what's missing is that the credits, credit hours, and the final degree are what contains the value. The diploma is the official document, which opens doors, grants raises, and expands the value of the employee. Businesses set this value through their practices of awarding those with a higher degree accordingly. Students seek this value by pursuing a degree. The University sets up shop, gets accreditation, and hires me to teach a course. My course is just a stop on the journey to the student-worker's degree and diploma. But I'm the real content. The diploma is a symbol, a synecdoche of what I provided for the student. I graded the student's papers. I graded the student's tests. I provided the student with reinforcement, guidance, and an expert voice in the discussion of organizational communication. I'm the value in the education. I don't grant the student the raise though; the diploma does.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)