#and of course blah blah blah extenuating circumstances

[professorupdog]

let it be known that I am pro dress coded events and establishments

I like the idea that we all decided to play a little dress up game to go to a restaurant or to a wedding

and if someone’s not in the suggested dress code it’s not the end of the world but it’s like showing up to a costume party without a costume. there’s nothing wrong with it per se but everyone else here has agreed to contribute to a specific atmosphere and vibe and it’s kind of a bummer that you decided not to do that.

[sweetbitterimpossiblecreature]

A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series

I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.

What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)

Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1

This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.

If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.

Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.

Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.

What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.

This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?

Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?

Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.

Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.

If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.

Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.

Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions

Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.

In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.

I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.

Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).

A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*

Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!

She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.

Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.

BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)

There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.

Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.

It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.

Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.

Rhysand: He Sucks

First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.

Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".

Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?

It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.

"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.

Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?

Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.

Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.

In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.

A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.

God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:

The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.

Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.

I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:

It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).

It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.

If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.

If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.

I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.

In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.

Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT

[leave-m3-alone-im-lonely]

Same shit different day

So here’s another boring post about how things are bad and how it feels like everything is falling apart around me. But if I don’t get it out I’m literally going to lose my mind.

Everybody says ‘you’re doing so well, you’ve got a job, you go to uni, you’ve got good friends around you’ blah blah blah

And in a way that’s true, I do have a job, I’m doing a degree and I’ve got an amazing set of supportive friends. But nobody sees what goes on behind the scenes. I’m okay when I’m busy, at work I have something to focus on, I have a duty of care and I HAVE to be okay for those I support. They need me. And yeah I’m doing a degree but that’s because I’ve had it instilled in me that if I don’t get a degree I won’t have a good job and if I don’t have a good job I’m basically a failure. I HAVE to do it. But even those things could be taken away from me soon enough.

I had a meeting today with a member of staff at uni because I missed my dissertation deadline and asked for extenuating circumstances and she basically said that a decision could be made that I am not fit to continue on the course because of my shit mental health and I will have to leave. So the one thing I’ve actually got going for me, may no longer be a thing. It’s taken me an extra year longer than most people to actually get my degree because of how awful things have been and how much I’ve let my mental health dictate what I do and in a way let it control my life.

Then there’s my friends. I feel like I’m losing everyone, nobody wants to be around me because of how I’m being, everyone is getting bored of things not being okay and the unpredictability of my emotions. I’m ‘boring’ and a ‘mardy cunt’ for wanting to take time on my own to deal with my own emotions and try and get my head straight so there’s not really any real point in trying to make the effort because I get shit for it either way.

I feel like I’m trapped inside a box and the box is on fire and the walls are closing in, there’s no door, no windows and no getting out.

So I’m sorry to all the people I have hurt in the process, I’m sorry for all of the everything and I only hope that one day you’ll be able to move on and be okay.

[thesoundofthelights]

July 16, 2015

This is a blog about being depressed. Do not be fooled by the bright colours of my website. Sometimes I get depressed. I contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said. I was struggling in Thailand, and while I put it up to a tough work environment and oppressive heat, I intuitively knew something wasn’t quite right. Landing in Canada in the freezing grey bleakness that is Alberta’s March, the brightly coloured and tearful reunion in Calgary with friends and family wasn’t what I had been picture in my mind for the last two and a half years. Not that seeing everyone wasn’t wonderful - it was - but I think here is a perfect place to explicitly state that “depression” has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. In any way. People treating me poorly and people treating me wonderfully had the same effect on me - grey. That’s the best word I can use to describe how I’ve been feeling these past months. While I seriously doubt I was or am “clinically depressed”, and I use the quotation marks not pejoratively or with condescension to myself or the disease, I pretty sure I don’t fall into that clinical category. Grey is what I would call it. For the first few weeks in Canada, as big plans to move to S. Korea to teach English! Then move to Bali to open a restaurant! Turned into staying in my mother’s office, sleeping on a twin bed, hostessing in a restaurant with 20 somethings and cricket noises in response to my emails to teach yoga, I quickly spiraled further down. I thought the feelings I was having was circumstantial. Of course I didn’t want to get out of bed to go to a crappy job, of course I cried tears of disbelief as I struggled to find a few inches of closet space in the spare room (ie. office) of my mother’s condo. I was a 31 year old woman that thought she was having a brief lay over with family only to too soon return to her glamorous globe trotting life style only to be stuck in the longest layover in the history of layovers. As the grey worsened, I found myself justifying how I was feeling the way a white girl at Coachella defends her feather headdress; without a touch of coherence. Of course 12 hours of sleep wasn’t enough. Of course the thought of exercise seemed as preposterous as living on Mars - which I did contemplate applying for. Did you see that? NASA, or whomever, was taking applications for civiliians to be part of the first settler team on Mars. As long as it involved getting away from where I was, I deeply considered it. No sex, no return flight though.. yikes… I digress… Thankfully I have enough spiritual tools and knowledge to know that these 'of courses' were getting out of control. I found myself flying into near uncontrollable and borderline violent rages in the car, screaming at other drivers and punching the steering wheel. My eyes would suddenly fill with tears at work and I would have to go to the bathroom to quell my crying. And while extenuating circumstances MIGHT’VE explained SOME of these things - a dear friend receiving bad news in regards to her cancer diagnosis still brings me to tears at the excruciating and unexplainable cruelty that is cancer, and the drivers in Calgary REFUSING to move into the intersection to make a left - DID THEY MAKE A NEW LAW WHILE I WAS GONE NOT ALLOWING A DRIVER TO MOVE INTO THE INTERSECTION BEFORE A LEFT HAND TURN SO THE DRIVERS BEHIND THEM MIGHT ALSO BE ALLOWED TO MAKE A LEFT AT THE YELLOW LIGHT? DID I MISS THAT NEW LAW? This new volcanic anger and weepiness was not something I felt was me. It was not as though I was possessed, but rather emptied. That these superfluous reactions to my life were to cover how deeply vacuous I actually felt.  I still got out of bed and dressed and showered and fed myself, which is why I doubt clinical depression would apply to me. But the sadness, the hopelessness, the ANGER - these emotions were taking over who I was. I couldn’t reach out because I couldn’t explain the paradox of the empty complexity of the grey. Depression is not a happy topic. It’s not to be discussed over a pint or tapas. And this isn’t a jab at friends or family who didn’t recognize my meager cries for help. The worst part about the grey is that it allows this terrible mask of societal obligation to cover your face so the trueness of how you really feel is gone. I could still smile and tell jokes but it was as if I was watching myself do it. Like I had programmed a robot to be the Sarah I thought I should be - the happy go lucky traveler feminist comedian performer yogi blah blah blah. Back to the ‘spiritual tools’ which now to me sounds like jargon but has saved my life more times than I can say. No one was going to fix my life. I’m not a victim of circumstances and the Sarah I want to be is a Sarah that can get out of bed, look in the mirror and say ‘Damn Sarah, I really love you and I really love our life.’  Meditation, affirmations, crystals and YouTube videos just weren’t cutting it. I’m not knocking any of these things either, by the way. I use them all in different ways. They just weren’t getting the job done this time. I needed serious, medical help. All I could manage was to do drag myself to acupuncture. I have only recently discovered acupuncture, in Thailand, from a white American dude no less, but oh man. I LOVE acupuncture. Acupuncture makes me feel SO GOOD. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? Never too late. I dragged my angry sad grey self to the doctor and told her translator, as she speaks not a word of English and my Mandarin is rusty at best, through tears how awful I have been feeling. She did all the tests a Chinese doctor does and told me with total certainty that of course I was feeling awful. My chi, my hormones, my liver - everything was all off. I got needles and herbs and walked out optimistic for the first time in weeks, if not months.  I’ve been taking my herbs faithfully and going for weekly needle appointments the last month. I’m not jumping out of bed to ride my unicorn to the rainbow where I work with faeries, but I’m not screaming at people from my car either. I’m not stopping conversations so I can stifle tears. I’m feeling hopeful, optimistic and strong again. Not always, but sometimes is a hell of a lot better than never. The point I wanted to make was about Self Care. When I’m teaching, I talk endlessly to my students about self compassion, turning inwards intuitively, sitting in loving meditation, forgiving ourselves, cheering ourselves on. I guess I kind of do work at a rainbow when I’m teaching… The point is, is that it was time for me to walk my talk. Instead of hating myself for not being how I think I should be - and that is some bullshit that needs to be written about another day. How SHOULD we ever be? Aren’t we exactly as we are, as we are? Should’s are the WORST - I got myself some help. It was small, tiny. An appt. with someone I hoped could help me. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. I’ve started to make Self Care my life. I meditate every damn morning. I bought a coloring book. I go outside as much as I can and sit in nature and watch the sunset and breath it in until my belly is full of orange and pink. I do yoga and talk to my spirit guides again and try to eat healthy. And when I eat popcorn with m&m’s I try to enjoy it without shame or guilt sprinkles. I forgive myself when I binge Netflix and try to do it all a bit less binge-y tomorrow. Today was the first day in months that I actually wanted to go for a jog. I might not want to move tomorrow, but I’ll listen to my body either way. I suppose Self Care is listening to our most authentic self. Not the shiny, low BMI, blow dryed hair, pedicured vegan Buddhist yogi version of myself that I somehow think of when I think of Self Care. I think for me Self Care is letting the hurt, tired, grey version of me be heard and taken care of without judgement. I watched a youtube video today of a colour blind man wearing corrective glasses that let him see colour for the first time in his life. I watched this guy see grass for the first time. Grass! Grass is so amazing and we walk by it all the time. He was crying at how beautiful the leaves in the trees were. And I reckon that’s a lot how emerging from this grey depression cocoon feels like. Like seeing colour.

[5hfanfiction]

Wicked Games (Chapter 8)

Heading towards my theater class, I began to grow nervous. Not just because our professor was assigning our big end of the course performances today, but because I will be coming face-to-face with Lauren Jauregui.

Last spring, when I was signing up for classes, I realized I had put off taking my fine-arts credit, and it would have to be done in order for me to graduate. Then I learned Lauren also needed a fine-arts credit, and we figured, why not take it together.

At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer, and I was even excited to have a class with the green-eyed girl. Now, post-sexcapade with Lauren, I was absolutely dreading having a class with her.

Since the game yesterday, we had been amicable with eachother, but we still were being distant. I didn’t want to overstep boundaries, and neither did she. I was mainly avoiding her because I was afraid to tempt myself. Out of sight, out of mind right? In other words, out of sight, and I’m physically unable to kiss her, so I won’t be tempted to kiss her.

I slumped into my chair in the middle of the room. I was pretty early, so only a few other students were scattered around. Mr. Vogel was sitting at his desk, wearing a bright red tie, with a light blue button-down shirt, and khaki shorts. He was a very eccentric man. I suppose it made sense, since he’s a theater teacher. He always wore a bright smile, and equally bright clothes. In other words, he liked to stand out.

My thoughts were interrupted, when I felt someone brush by me, and a figure quietly sit next to me. Lauren was here. No more avoiding her.

Normally, we would immediately turn to eachother and erupt into easy conversation. Now, this being the first class since we had sex, things were weird. Hell, it was the first class since we had kissed too, since last week’s class had been cancelled.

I leisurely turned towards Lauren, and forced a small smile. She brushed her dark locks aside, and met my gaze, giving me an equally small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Hey,” I said after a few moments of silence.

“Hi,” she said uncomfortably.

God, I hated this. Things were so awkward between them. It was infuriating. The two of us had made so much progress in our friendship the past couple years and now it was as if we were just meeting, trying to feel eachother out, and see whether we were compatible or not.

As I was desperately trying to come up with something to talk about, Mr. Vogel started speaking. I was grateful for it to be honest. His loud and booming voice echoed across the walls.

“Good morning, class! Today is an exciting day!” He began clapping his hands together enthusiastically. “And why is that, Carlos?”

Carlos was a kid who sat in the back every class, and was clearly unhappy to be here. He was one of those ‘cool, rebel’ types. Mr. Vogel enjoyed forcing his participation.

“We’re getting our performance assignments,” Carlos stated emotionless.

“Exactly!” Mr. Vogel exclaimed. He turned toward the white board beside his desk, and wrote with the marker, covering the entire board with one simple word. Arguments.

“Now remember, these performances are VERY important for your grade. This is essentially your final, and accounts for 50% of your semester grade.” There were a few groans around the room once he finished that statement. If he noticed, he didn’t act like it because he continued on with an impassioned tone, “For your finals, I have decided on scenes that involve arguments. It could be scenes from a play, a movie, or a TV show. I truly believe that some of our most honest thoughts, and most real emotions, are expressed through arguments. This is why I have chosen it as our focus. Arguments and debates are where we get to express ourselves, express our true selves, our identity and thoughts..” Mr. Vogel continued rambling on and on about fights, and personalities, and true self and blah blah blah blah blah. He tended to get carried away when he got passionate. I pretty much stopped listening.

Then he started handing out our assignments. My hands grew clammy, like they always did when I got nervous. My foot started tapping up and down on the floor, my impatience growing. What kind of scene would he give me and Lauren?

He stopped at our table, and looked between us with an excited smile, then he slid a packet towards me, and swiftly moved on to the next table.

I looked down at the front sheet anxiously to find in bold print at the top of the page, “The Notebook (2004)” - What do you want?

“You have got to be shitting me,” I gasped out loud. I recalled the exact scene from the movie. I knew what it entailed, and I couldn’t believe this is what he had chosen for us. It’s extremely romantic. That’s the exact opposite of what me and Lauren need right now.

I turned to Lauren, hoping for an agreement. I found her to be staring blankly at the page, reading through the lines. I groaned irritably when she refused to acknowledge me.

There’s no way she didn’t know what this scene was, and the movie it was from. I have never met a female in my life who’s never seen “The Notebook”.

Finally, I saw Mr. Vogel return to his workspace. I immediately took hold of the stapled pages and rushed towards him. I only realized once I got there, that Lauren had followed behind me.

I slapped the pages down on the desk, while he looked up with one of his generous grins. “What seems to be the problem here?” he asked with a curious tone.

“We’re two girls,” I said pointing between me and Lauren. “How can we do this scene?” I asked, practically begging for him to give us something else.

He blinked at me as if the question was ridiculous, then stated simply, “Ladies, it’s a changing world these days.”

'If only he knew the irony of that comment, considering these two ladies had already been intimate before’ I thought, before I shook it off, and returned to listening.

“There will be no judgment in this classroom, I can assure you. I already adjusted the script to ensure everything is gender neutral, so you don’t need to worry about that.” he paused, still smiling, and looked at each of us in the face. Then he said, “The point of this exercise is to make you step out of your comfort zone. If you don’t think you can handle that, you are more than welcome to pick a new partner,” he suggested.

“No!” I shouted urgently, but realized there was a harmony in the word. I wasn’t the only one who had said no.

I turned to look at Lauren, bewildered, shocked that she would be so against not having me as her partner. I would have thought she would jump at the opportunity, especially considering our chosen script.

Mr. Vogel looked at us with a smirk, then affirmed, “The Notebook it is then.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but then closed it, accepting defeat. There was no getting around it. When Mr. Vogel assigned something, it was final. There would have to be some intense extenuating circumstances for him to retract and change an assignment.

In reality, me and Lauren’s situation probably fit the bill for those extenuating circumstances, but there was no way, no way in hell that I was going to come up to my professor, and explain to him that 'well, we’ve been lusting over eachother for a few years now, and we had sex, and now we don’t want to have sex, and I technically have a girlfriend back home, and things are awkward between us two now, and we would really appreciate a non-romantic argument’. Yeah, no. Hell would have to freeze over before I did something that humiliating to get out of a project.

I turned, sharing a knowing look with Lauren, and sulked back over to our table. I threw the packet down in frustration, and it started to slide off of the edge, but Lauren skillfully caught it. If I wasn’t so mad, I would have been embarassed at my outburst.

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. Lauren set the pages back down and sat as well, rubbing her temples with her hands.

“Ok, well this is sufficiently awkward.”

I laughed at Lauren’s words. Atleast she was speaking the truth.

“But if we want to get an A in this class, we’re going to have to do this, and we’re going to have to do it convincingly.”

She was right. With the performance being 50% of our grade, it would basically be impossible to get an A in the class with anything but an A on the performance. There is no way I am not getting top marks in an entry-level theater class. That would be one huge blemish on my transcript to professional physical therapy schools. Not like I could explain why I did badly to those schools either. I nearly chuckled at the thought. 'Well, sir, I had a one night stand with the girl I was partnered with, and I was really uncomfortable doing 'The Notebook’ with her, and that’s why I didn’t get an A.“ Ha! That would be a disaster.

I finally glanced back towards the script and internally cringed. I always thought "The Notebook” was overrated. It seemed like everyone else was all goo-goo gah-gah over it. Me, I always felt “A Walk to Remember” was Nicholas Sparks’ best story. No matter how many times I watched that movie, I always cried. To me, AWTR felt more realistic, but it also hit closer to home. My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer while I was in middle school, and nearly died. She’d been perfectly healthy since, but that time in my life still held a searing scar on my heart. So many times, I woke up in a cold sweat, having dreamt that she was gone. The fear that her cancer would return gripped me constantly, despite my best efforts. My mother was my rock. If I lost her, I’m not sure who I would become..

But anyway, “The Notebook” never seemed to get me emotional like it did other people. I appreciated the sentiment it provided, and of course I related to the theme of love that covered it, but something about it always seemed detached to me. Especially the ending, which spoiler alert, was ridiculously hard to believe.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I flinched when I felt Lauren nudge me. “Class is over, Camz.”

My jaw dropped slightly at the nickname. Lauren didn’t use it very often, and I found it especially surprising, considering our current tense circumstances. I looked up to see her standing, looking at the floor, with a grimace on her face. She was probably criticizing herself for using the nickname.

“Thanks, Lo,” I said, using her nickname, in the hopes to indirectly reassure her that it was ok.

Her piercing greens looked into my brown ones as I stood. My knees nearly buckled and I almost fell back into the chair. It felt like she was staring into my soul. We were incredibly close. For whatever reason, she did not move away at all when I stood. We were a mere inches away, intensely staring at one another.

Lauren cleared her throat, “Well, I’ll see you at practice later.”

I only nodded in response. For some reason, I could not form words anymore.

I started to walk out of the class after her, but then frowned when I felt like I was forgetting something. I slammed my palm against my forehead when I realized what it was. I rushed back to the table and grabbed my bag from the floor, feeling embarassed. Lauren’s eyes had distracted me so much, I nearly forgot my backpack. I glanced up as I was leaving to see Mr. Vogel with a questioning expression across his face.

My cheeks burned slightly from embarassment. I felt like an imbecile. 'Here we go, yet again’ I grouched internally. Lauren made me feel like an uncontrollable idiot. Why did she have this effect on me?

–

Wattpad: munkeytutu

[sumergosuigeneris]

July 13, 2017

Finally had the call. My assessment is that he wasn’t actually very busy, he was avoiding me. Avoiding telling me I was rejected. He actually couldn’t get the words out. This is apparently his first time in charge of graduate recruitment.

Supposedly he advocated very hard for me. But *shockingly* they were concerned about my grades. So much babbling, on both our parts. He beat around the bush asking me things he wasn’t allowed to ask me. So I finally got to explain some of it. 

What actually does shock me is that apparently, according to him, my research guy at the R1 I volunteered at called him and really made a case for me. Told the guy he actually wanted me in his lab. So the grad recruiter guy actually thought I had a slot in the master’s program at the R1. I had to explain how I got fucked over there too. Good stuff. But at least I got to tell him I’d had a guaranteed slot in a research lab at an R1. That felt good.

I was pretty emotional. Then he came up with a brilliant idea *sarcasm* that if there was a job, they could hire me  and I could take some classes, blah, blah, blah. I LITERALLY basically offered to do that!!!! Did he even read my email? I talked about the suggestion I’d had to go on probation, pay tuition, and prove I deserved to be there. His whole idea was for me to take a couple classes and apply again next year. He even did that thing my boss does where he hinted around so I’d come up with the brilliant idea of moving to the area, taking classes there, etc... Bitch, I thought of that, but if you don’t want me now, why would I do that?

He actually had the nerve to tell me that if I did that (with good grades of course), and if he was still the recruiting coordinator, he’d admit me. What bullshit.

Supposedly, he at least saw the potential I have, the contributions I could make, and why I deserved a spot. But you know, I’ve been around academia a good long time. And if they really wanted me, they’d take a chance, and find a way to have me there. If I offer to enter on probation, paying my own way, that basically takes you all completely off the hook. You still don’t want me? You never will.

So I told him what I’ve been thinking while I’ve been applying for jobs (which I told him I’ve been doing). I’m probably out of academia, possibly out of the stem pipeline. I’m too old for maybe. I’ve been rejected too many time for too much bullshit for hope to outweigh reality.

I’m trying to remember. There was a time at the beginning of the conversation where he started talking about how he wasn’t sure he could advise me to keep going with something. Because of the money investment. I don’t remember what that was. But I guess it doesn’t matter, b/c by the end of the conversation, he had the nerve to be telling me to not give up.

He’s a decently nice guy. I think I actually know more about how academia works, literally and from a science policy level, than he does. But he’s a professor and I’m a failure. Good stuff.

I don’t blame him. Or them. It’s how academia works. Everyone who tells you grades don’t matter, that extenuating circumstances are taken into account, that diversity matters, whatever they’re telling you - they’re not lying, they just have no idea what they’re talking about. Also a good reason not to take career advice from a professor.