Hell on Wheels, Part I

Spring semester: day seventy-three

It's been a really strange, surreal week, and next week is going to be even weirder.

Today is my friend Shannon's funeral, apparently. Or, specifically, "wake," as it's being called, because people in West Virginia are still old-fashioned at times. Some of her friends and family have set up a memorial trust fund to cover the costs of the funeral and burial, and whatever is extra will be put into a trust for her daughter. Though I can't really afford it, I will be sending a check to help contribute to this fund. I feel like I should do something, anyway. If I could be there for the funeral, I would.

I think, for the most part, I handle death well -- whether the person who dies is currently close to me or otherwise. All of us process death in our own ways, I think; I've always been the sort of person who very quickly accepts and realizes that nothing can be done, and that mourning is not about grief as much as it is remembrance. Is there grief? Yes, of course there's grief, especially when it comes to tragic, senseless deaths. But it's not like anything can be changed. Nothing anyone can do is going to bring that person back. The only thing anyone can do is accept it and move on. It may suck, but it's true. As mentioned before, I've had many friends (and some family members) die over the years -- some of them I was very close to, others were ancillaries -- but regardless of anything else, the lives of the living go on. Again, it may suck, but it's true. No matter how much one may want the world to stop when someone dies, it doesn't. It won't. It's not being cold, it's not unfeeling. It's being realistic and accepting of any situation that comes along -- yes, including death.

I've often wondered if the reason I feel this way is because I have always expected so little out of life and out of this world. That's not really a pessimistic viewpoint, either; again, it's a realistic one. When something goes wrong, no matter how bad -- especially in the past two years or so -- I've always approached it with a yeah, that's about right, why should I have expected anything different? sort of approach. For example, when my car decided to blow its serpentine belt and belt tensioner, and almost commit ritual seppuku on me about two months ago, my thoughts were along the lines of yeah, fucking figures. Can't do much about it but pay to get it fixed, oh well. Getting upset about bad things solves nothing. I've long ago accepted the fact that since I'm a poor grad student in a fairly shitty situation, virtually nothing is going to go my way. It's not bad luck, it's just reality. And most of the time, folks, life sucks. It just does.

"Are you depressed?" Lady asked me last night. "Because if you're depressed, that's really something you should tell me."

"No, babe," I said, "I'm actually in great spirits right now; I have you, I secured a teaching job for this summer, the semester is coming to an end, and I get to see you graduate and meet mom and [aunt] in a few weeks. No, everything's going well."

This is the absolute honest truth, by the way -- I am not depressed. Not that I would ever want to, but I am incapable of lying to Lady anyway. No, I'm pretty content for a number of reasons, like the ones I mentioned above. Am I happy? Overall, well, happy enough, I suppose. It's not like I'm filled with absolute jubilation, or anything, but right now I'm on a pretty even keel. Because of the fact that the life of a graduate student is on a constant level of shitty, I tend to get excited when some of the little things go right for once. Right now, in my own life, everything's going fine -- I'm more than halfway finished with my editing project (which I will turn in on Tuesday), I attended my very last class of the semester on Wednesday, and I have but one more class to "teach" before the semester ends. Tuesday and Wednesday will be my last real days on campus for the semester, and I'll only be there for a few short hours each day. Next Monday, the 7th, is the only other day I'll have to be there at all, and only to administer/grade the final exam. I've also received my confirmation letter in the mail that says yes, I will be teaching again in the fall (obviously), though it does not tell me what. That, of course, is still up in the air, but it's either going to be the online courses or my normal Science/Engineering 102 courses. Whatever works, I'm fine with it.

I was also notified this week (because, well, I asked) that pay cycles for us GTAs who are teaching in the summer will not be interrupted between the end of this semester and the beginning of summer sessions -- we get paid today, May 11th, and May 25th, and the first pay disbursement for summer instructors is June 8th, which is on schedule as per the usual. I've been told, however, not to necessarily count on that date, as last year it took until mid-July for the first summer pay to drop. As it's on the schedule for June 8th, perhaps (read: hopefully) they've fixed that problem this time around. Altogether, five of us have been selected to teach summer classes, and I finally figured out why we five were selected above the others: preference is apparently given to those GTAs who have never taught in the summer before but wanted to, at least this time around. Some of us who applied for, and were eligible to teach for this summer didn't get a teaching gig because they've taught in the summer before (either last year or the year before) and they apparently wanted to give some of the other GTAs a shot at it.

At least that's what I've been told, anyway, by unnamed sources unaffiliated with who does the selections. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. If it is true, it would explain why the five of us were selected.

Anyway, I digress.

Lady has been really sick this week with some sort of stomach flu, or at least that's what the doctors think it is. She's been very slowly recovering, but for anyone in academia, teacher or student, these last two or three weeks of the semester are the absolute worst times ever to get sick. The end of any semester is hell on wheels, what with the amount of assignments that all come due at the exact same time -- not to mention final exams. As I've mentioned before, though, Lady's a tough girl; she's fighting through it all. I'm convinced that even while sick, she'll still get A's on her papers and projects; that girl busts her ass on schoolwork more than anyone I've ever seen, and the fact that she's incredibly intelligent definitely helps. If she's feeling better and can get away from school for a few days (her classes operate differently than mine do) she's planning to come out for the weekend either tonight or tomorrow -- and if she can't make it this weekend, she will next weekend.

In preparations for her visit, regardless of when it may occur, I have spent the overnight hours doing some light cleaning and other chores (such as laundry, dishes, washing the bedsheets, etc). I'm doing this partially because she could be here as early as tonight or tomorrow afternoon, and partially because if I start working more on my editing project, I may finish it a little sooner than I would otherwise, but it would be at the cost of a total lack of sleep and free time. If she makes it out this weekend, I'll spend all day on it today. If she doesn't, I'll tackle it page by page over the rest of the weekend and spread it out a bit more. Either way, it'll still be done by Tuesday morning so I can turn it in.

Oh, and I made a huge pot of soup tonight. Sort of a mishmash of different ingredients I had around the house. Chopped chicken breasts, noodle soup (in the packet, the Lipton kind), shell/curly/spaghetti pasta, a can of minestrone (for more color/flavor/vegetables), a can of mixed vegetables, and water, amongst a few other dashes of spices here and there to taste. It's the only real "cooking" I've done in about two weeks -- I've been living off of the bare essentials, as I knew the rent and all of my bills would be coming due soon. My fridge is basically bare and I'm low on funds at the moment, despite getting paid today (again, the rent), so I'm scouring the pantry to find things to combine into meals. Soup works. Soup works well.

Besides, I'll have to do some shopping when Lady comes in anyhow, regardless of when that may be.

So yeah, that's what's going on right now. Right now is the proverbial calm before the storm, because, starting next week? The storm hits. Last week of classes. Preparations for finals. Practice grading sessions. Grading a large set of papers quickly and efficiently.

Fun times, for sure.