Day 27
Today I found out you can't just slide by faking it when you reach grad school. No sir, there is actual work and cognitive processes that one must not only endure but exhibit in the classroom. What this means is that you can't just show up hung over, with three hours of sleep and a badittude. This shit is tough and listening to your peers drone on with their fancy strings of inflated words and everyone totally buying it is downright terrifying. I may have to add words like, convoluted, subtextual implications, thematic undercurrent and the like to my list of usual words (slut, bitch, shit, ass, hate).
My peers reassured me that one day I would feel comfortable getting in on the workshopping and be able to speak just like they do. I smiled and nodded and bit my tongue until I became drunk on my own blood. "You know academia isn't for everyone," one said, I'd heard that before. But, he was a Canadian and had to undercut his bitterness with a, "but, you'll be okay, you'll do alright, you just gotta learn the jargon."
Gee thanks, I can't wait to either fail or be just like everyone else, bite me motherfucker. Learn my jargon. Let me know how it goes for you when you drink the Kool-Aid and moments before your last gasp realize that maybe you'd have been smarter not to have fallen into the ways of your "academia" brethren.
Whew, obviously today I am a bitch (what can I say it's Tuesday). But, it ain't so bad being a bitch, especially around Canadians. They listen to you moan and nod, slowly their smiles fade as they realize their incessant "I'm sorry's" won't be enough, offer some kindly upbeat catchphrase and wander off. Their actions make your bitchiness worse but also make you feel powerful (you overtook their smugginess).
But, when it is your day to be the bitch it is rare that you are out-bitched. Today it happened. My bitchiness and I found a seat at our own table in the cafeteria with our comic section at the ready when the only other true bitch on campus took her seat at the table (despite their being plenty of open seats). I questioned her tactic. We sat in silence and finally, when I couldn't take it, I made a comment about the food and she responded (witchily, yet civil) I was stupified. Why was she talking to me? This went on for sometime. When she attempted to pack away a ridiculous amount of carrotsticks I said,
"Let's see if she can do it."
"You can watch, but don't ask me any questions." Her word cut like a dull knife going through the web between your fingers. She wheeled me in and then POW smacked me with a graceful level of condescension. I will miss my crown, but I have to admit it when I am shamelessly out-bitched.
Tonight I played a game where you build cities and roads and entire countrysides. And then I thought about it, isn't it funny that almost all nerd games are about building new civilizations and taking them over? Is this because essentially this is what nerds will be doing with their lives? Or, is it because they are so far removed from the world in which they are forced to exist that this creates a space for them to play God to their own societies? Or, are they just bored and afraid that Candyland would beat down their IQ every time they pass through the Candy Cane Forest?
Also tonight a friend and I created a "Word Wall". We took over a stretch of hallway wallspace and started a collage of words we didn't know and their meanings. I sent out an email inviting others to contribute to our words. I reveled in the possibilities, all sorts of words maybe from all different languages mingling together in a semi-public space. A word freak's dream. But then I thought of it, I didn't state that people couldn't put up "naughty" words. My heart sank, not because someone may befoul my "Word Wall" but because I want that person to be me. Like the idiot I can be I vocalized my concern and desire to several peers they shunned me for even thinking of doing something so juvenile. I conceded, for now. But, that doesn't mean I won't be up all night making naughty word lists and trying to think of ways to sneak them onto the wall... before someone else does.
This sneaky action would display my jargon, make me bitchier, and allow me to play God to my own society. What more could I ask for? (besides unlimited Blackberry jellybeans) If only I could decide on one word. I suppose I could tag it with all of them, but they might know it was me, hmm....
-Canadian Castaway
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