I've been done with my degree for a little more than a month now and while I have been reading everyone else's blogs, I haven't written anything myself. This is because I am planning to bring this blog to an end. I'm going to be cleaning it up over the next week or so and I plan to leave the blog itself up for now, anyway.
I started Intermittently Rational almost two years ago when I was trying to finish my undergraduate degree and I was still in the middle of making a recovery from a very bad episode of depression. I put the emphasis on my experiences as a student with mental disorder. Now, many months later on, I seem to have recovered from mental disorder and it doesn't seem like it's going to come back anytime soon. I haven't been cured, mind: I take my lamotrigine, I have bad days and mini-mood swings, I'm obsessively careful about keeping stress, late nights and alcohol to a reasonable minimum. It has, however, remained all sub-clinical and hasn't interfered with me doing what I want and living my life. I have a mental disorder but I'm not suffering from it anymore.
Because of this, I feel that what I have to offer on a blog doesn't fit into the nature of this blog anymore. I still have things to say about mental disorder that are - at least in my opinion - interesting and I'm pretty sure that I will occasionally add something on this blog in the future. I will not, however, be doing so regularly. I plan to start a new blog (I like having one) with my real name (!) and a broader emphasis over the next month and I plan to continue to use this google account to read and comment on the blogs I've been reading, so I'll still be reachable at this address.
Starting Intermittently Rational is one of the best decisions I've made. I cannot thank all of you who have read and commented over the years enough for all the support. It was a real and tangible help to me as I put my life back together (again). While I'll miss being here, I hope some of you will come follow my new blog (I'll send out an e-mail with the address once I have one) and whatever happens, I'll still be following.
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
08 October 2010
29 June 2010
Hurray
I have been in a spectacularly cheerful mood ever since exams have ended. I have, however, been worrying about the proposed ConDemolition government immigration cap. It seemed highly possible that they would eliminate Tier IV conversion visas, which is the next one I need to get, and that I'd have to go back to America, which I really don't want to do. Yesterday afternoon I was in the highly surreal position of attending a party in Parliament while the debates about non-EU immigration were going on. There are little television screens in every room in Parliament, one green, one red, which tell you what's being debated in the Commons and Lords, respectively. The whole time I was there trying to overcome my shyness and talk to people I don't know in order to try to find a job, I would catch out of the corner of my eye that Theresa May was speaking and that seven minutes of the debate were left. It was unbelievable.
However, this morning, I read in the Guardian that students staying on to work after finishing a degree from a British university are exempt from the cap and that the old rules continue to apply! Thank God! I really don't know what I would have done otherwise.
However, this morning, I read in the Guardian that students staying on to work after finishing a degree from a British university are exempt from the cap and that the old rules continue to apply! Thank God! I really don't know what I would have done otherwise.
14 February 2010
What I Want to Be When I Grow Up
I did know what I wanted to do when I grew up way back when I was still thirteen. Then I grew up and for so many reasons, it didn't work out. I gave up on it completely when I was 24 and have spent the past five years trying to figure out what else I want to be when I grow up. I think I have settled it.
When I grow up, I want to be a peripatetic metaphysical philosopher-poet. Peripatetic because the Parapatetics wandered around the different Greek city states teaching philosophy to the citizen youth and I have this sneaking feeling that I will continue wandering around the western nation-states. Philosopher because I will be teaching it (parapatetically) and I also don't think I can stop and I like it. Metaphysical because one has to specialise, and publish or perish! Poet because it is otherwise very, very hard to write metaphysics and I like poetry and I like to sing. I also like the metaphysical poets.
I think that it is one of the delightful occupational hazards of loving the study of ancient Greek that one would look to its culture in order to pick out one's career path. I'm not sure that I would want to change that even if I could and besides, it will make my newsagent into a soothsayer and who doesn't want a soothsayer to be their newsagent?
It does make things seem clearer. Teach, talk, sing and write, wander. I tend to do these things; now I need to figure out how to do these things with people and have them exchange money for it. I have a concrete plan in mind already.
The haze is clearing.
When I grow up, I want to be a peripatetic metaphysical philosopher-poet. Peripatetic because the Parapatetics wandered around the different Greek city states teaching philosophy to the citizen youth and I have this sneaking feeling that I will continue wandering around the western nation-states. Philosopher because I will be teaching it (parapatetically) and I also don't think I can stop and I like it. Metaphysical because one has to specialise, and publish or perish! Poet because it is otherwise very, very hard to write metaphysics and I like poetry and I like to sing. I also like the metaphysical poets.
I think that it is one of the delightful occupational hazards of loving the study of ancient Greek that one would look to its culture in order to pick out one's career path. I'm not sure that I would want to change that even if I could and besides, it will make my newsagent into a soothsayer and who doesn't want a soothsayer to be their newsagent?
It does make things seem clearer. Teach, talk, sing and write, wander. I tend to do these things; now I need to figure out how to do these things with people and have them exchange money for it. I have a concrete plan in mind already.
The haze is clearing.
18 December 2009
Where Am I?
It used to be that when I moved away, I moved away. Now, through the miracle of facebook, I have live updates and photos on just how much it's snowing back in Asheville (reports of 6-9 inches from various friends). Not only am I envious of the fun that is a large snowfall - I'm beginning to think I should just give in and move to Scotland where it will snow and I can have holes in my jumpers, switch the heating off and use a single 35 watt light bulb to light the living room in peace - but I'm also actively worried about various marginally housed friends who are still there, facing at least a day or two without electricity, heat or passable roads.
I have liked the way that facebook allows one to keep up with people in a flowing, daily way but now I don't feel so sure about it. I would rather not be worried; not because I don't care but because there is bugger all I can do. I wonder, really, whether it wouldn't be better not to be able to keep as much track of my old life as I am able to do via facebook. There are a lot of things, after all, that I would just rather not know.
I have liked the way that facebook allows one to keep up with people in a flowing, daily way but now I don't feel so sure about it. I would rather not be worried; not because I don't care but because there is bugger all I can do. I wonder, really, whether it wouldn't be better not to be able to keep as much track of my old life as I am able to do via facebook. There are a lot of things, after all, that I would just rather not know.
16 October 2009
Feminist Quasi-Rant With a Cheerful Postlude
It has been easy for me to forget what a male dominated academic discipline philosophy is but I can't help noticing just now. Out of all my set texts for all of my seminars, none were written or edited by a woman. Only two out of the fourteen professors in the department are women. In my philosophy of science seminar, I am the only woman. In my further logic seminar, I am one of two women. In my political philosophy seminar, I am one of three women. In my moral philosophy seminar, I am one of five women. Each of these seminars has fifteen people, so in the one with the largest number of women, we still make up only one third of the group. All of this at a university where women outnumber men when the university population is considered in its entirety (53% female, 47% male).
Added to that, there is a man in his mid-forties in philosophy of science who has gone out of his way to tell me what seminars I should be taking instead of philosophy of science and further logic. Apparently, philosophy of science is so specialised and jargon laden that it will be too hard for me to join in and it does not seem to matter how many times I explain to him that I have yet to find any jargon I am not already familiar with in the reading and that I have a prior acquaintance with several of the set texts. I am a philosopher and therefore acquainted with philosophy. Philosophy of science is a subset of philosophy and I am, therefore, sufficiently qualified to study philosophy of science. It is not as though I am trying to teach it!
During undergrad, nine of the ten people in the philosophy department in my year were women, which is unusual but is what I am used to, so all this is a bit of a shock to the system. I don't want to be unfair to my new university: the professors for philosophy of science and further logic are very clearly supportive of my being in there and two very nice PhD students (one who is in phil of sci and logic with me, the other of whom is in phil of sci and public policy) have been very encouraging and supportive, so it is not as though I am suddenly staring down the establishment all alone. Nevertheless, it has all been rather jarring.
I am having a fabulous time though, spending hours each day talking about philosophy and art and politics, and drinking copious amounts of coffee. I thought that I would enjoy being here, I just never thought that I would be quite this happy quite this soon. No objections on my part to that. I didn't think I'd make friends this easily either but lo and behold, I have a party invite for tomorrow night and a date to see the Turner Prize show at the Tate. I don't know what's happened to my life but I like it.
Added to that, there is a man in his mid-forties in philosophy of science who has gone out of his way to tell me what seminars I should be taking instead of philosophy of science and further logic. Apparently, philosophy of science is so specialised and jargon laden that it will be too hard for me to join in and it does not seem to matter how many times I explain to him that I have yet to find any jargon I am not already familiar with in the reading and that I have a prior acquaintance with several of the set texts. I am a philosopher and therefore acquainted with philosophy. Philosophy of science is a subset of philosophy and I am, therefore, sufficiently qualified to study philosophy of science. It is not as though I am trying to teach it!
During undergrad, nine of the ten people in the philosophy department in my year were women, which is unusual but is what I am used to, so all this is a bit of a shock to the system. I don't want to be unfair to my new university: the professors for philosophy of science and further logic are very clearly supportive of my being in there and two very nice PhD students (one who is in phil of sci and logic with me, the other of whom is in phil of sci and public policy) have been very encouraging and supportive, so it is not as though I am suddenly staring down the establishment all alone. Nevertheless, it has all been rather jarring.
I am having a fabulous time though, spending hours each day talking about philosophy and art and politics, and drinking copious amounts of coffee. I thought that I would enjoy being here, I just never thought that I would be quite this happy quite this soon. No objections on my part to that. I didn't think I'd make friends this easily either but lo and behold, I have a party invite for tomorrow night and a date to see the Turner Prize show at the Tate. I don't know what's happened to my life but I like it.
09 October 2009
Ah, the Joy of my Very Own Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband Stick-Thing
Hello!
I am now the happy possessor of a flat of my own in east London, a travelcard, a phone, an NUS card, an interesting seminar schedule, various library cards, a minimally sufficient amount of furniture, and some new friends. Now I just need a bank account (actually harder to get than a visa, believe it or not: UKBA should take lessons) and an iron and I'll be all set.
And some sleep - I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted.
I am now the happy possessor of a flat of my own in east London, a travelcard, a phone, an NUS card, an interesting seminar schedule, various library cards, a minimally sufficient amount of furniture, and some new friends. Now I just need a bank account (actually harder to get than a visa, believe it or not: UKBA should take lessons) and an iron and I'll be all set.
And some sleep - I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted.
26 August 2009
Life Right Now is Bland, Tasteless and Rather Squishy
After two days spent not changing out of my pajamas and/or leaving the house I have had to admit to myself that I am just plain depressed. I don't seem to have any motivation to do anything besides read and knit and I can't seem to make myself stay on top of all the fun governmental paperwork I'm trying to do.
It's hard to tell whether this is 'real' depression in the DSM sense. After all, that's supposed to go on for at least two weeks (yes) with a marked change in appetite (no) and change in sleep patterns (hard to say). The main criterion, in my mind, is whether or not it interferes with your daily life (I can't tell).
I can't tell because I don't have much of a daily life at the moment, not because I'm avoiding people or too panicky to go anywhere, but because all I have to do at the moment is move and work on my visa application. I don't have to be anywhere. There is no particular reason for me to get up at any specific time, nor to get dressed and it's hard for a schedule like that to be interfered with by anything. I do feel melancholy but I think that's more to do with breaking up my home than anything else.
Everything is flat right now and that is the case for me when I'm depressed; that complete lack of desire that makes it almost impossible to choose one thing over another even when there are no particular consequences (such as picking out a book to read).
Another possibility is that I am extremely bored. I rather hope that that's it. Usually, when the semester is over and I have sixteen weeks ahead of me with no requirement to do anything, go anywhere or see anyone, I feel a huge sense of relief. This year, I woke up on that first Monday morning and thought, dammit, I have nowhere to go and no one to see: I took that to indicate that I wasn't depressed.
Right now, I feel like I have some sort of interior dimming, a grey-out of desire and interest. I have plenty of time to do some work (e.g., write a post that has actual content instead of navel-gazing) but I don't seem to be able to summon the concentration or will to do so. And time keeps folding up in strange ways so that some days feel like weeks and some weeks feel like days and two hours will pass agonisingly slowly until I look at the clock and notice that it's three hours later than I thought.
I do hope it's just boredom. I suppose I'll find out soon, when term starts.
It's hard to tell whether this is 'real' depression in the DSM sense. After all, that's supposed to go on for at least two weeks (yes) with a marked change in appetite (no) and change in sleep patterns (hard to say). The main criterion, in my mind, is whether or not it interferes with your daily life (I can't tell).
I can't tell because I don't have much of a daily life at the moment, not because I'm avoiding people or too panicky to go anywhere, but because all I have to do at the moment is move and work on my visa application. I don't have to be anywhere. There is no particular reason for me to get up at any specific time, nor to get dressed and it's hard for a schedule like that to be interfered with by anything. I do feel melancholy but I think that's more to do with breaking up my home than anything else.
Everything is flat right now and that is the case for me when I'm depressed; that complete lack of desire that makes it almost impossible to choose one thing over another even when there are no particular consequences (such as picking out a book to read).
Another possibility is that I am extremely bored. I rather hope that that's it. Usually, when the semester is over and I have sixteen weeks ahead of me with no requirement to do anything, go anywhere or see anyone, I feel a huge sense of relief. This year, I woke up on that first Monday morning and thought, dammit, I have nowhere to go and no one to see: I took that to indicate that I wasn't depressed.
Right now, I feel like I have some sort of interior dimming, a grey-out of desire and interest. I have plenty of time to do some work (e.g., write a post that has actual content instead of navel-gazing) but I don't seem to be able to summon the concentration or will to do so. And time keeps folding up in strange ways so that some days feel like weeks and some weeks feel like days and two hours will pass agonisingly slowly until I look at the clock and notice that it's three hours later than I thought.
I do hope it's just boredom. I suppose I'll find out soon, when term starts.
24 August 2009
The Other Side of Envy
I did tell myself in my strictest tone that I was to go to bed at 10.00, no arguments. It worked last night. Here I am, however, at 1.24am. I finally got really excited about going to London. I've spent a great deal of time with boxes and back pain this week. It's about forty minutes of packing, ten of whinging followed by three hours of sitting on the couch with the hot water bottle.
I have an ink stain on my couch, annoyingly: this is the price I pay for building nest on the couch out of blankets, pillows, my journal, several pens because I can never seem to find the same one twice, books of various kinds, both reference and fiction, my knitting and one or more shawls. I think I shall be quite content to be 65 and eccentric, once I get there. There used to be a cat and a pack of biscuits in there too but those have disappeared (and no, the disappearance of the biscuits was not an easy thing for me either). Somehow, the cap seems to have come off the pen - I only use ink pens for proper writing on paper - and somehow re-attached itself in the night for when I picked it up this morning, the cap was on but the pen was entirely empty and there was this big black mark. Time to get out the rubbing alcohol and old paper and rags. This has nothing to do with anything in particular so I shall return to the subject at hand...
...renewed enthusiasm. During all this knitting, pen covered, hot water bottle couch sitting, I have been watching movies set in London. I didn't start off doing that on purpose: I just picked one and then another one. Now I'm excited and my accent is doing that shifting thing that it does. We have an Oxbridgian Classics professor at the university and whenever I talk to her I get accent shift and then turn tongue-tied because I'm worried she'll think I'm making fun of her.
It's an odd, rather moth-eaten accent that I get living in England. It sounds British to Americans and American to Brits, although I do get the occasional confused inquiry as to whether I hail from Ireland or New Zealand. That mostly happens when I'm drunk. But it shifted enough today that when my sister called, she teased me about it.
She also told me she envied me a little. She hasn't been the only one to say that recently and it feels strange to me. Many of these statements come from people whom I envy. I tend to be envious of their ability to graduate from university in a normal amount of time and to hold down jobs and to settle down and get married and, in spots, enter into the property market. This has something to do with my impending 29th birthday, I'm quite sure, but a few (well, only one out of that list, to be quite honest - going to grad school has put paid to my worry over my ability to graduate with my BA, hold down a job, since I have a good reason not to for a whole year and I have no overwhelming desire to entangle myself with real estate for the time being) still hold. I only have intermittent envy over their mental boringness since I can see two sides to being mentally interesting.
I have spent the vast part of this summer longing for that one thing, as though I were a transplant from the earlier part of the 20th century. I would rather have that than an MSc, at the moment. I've had to sit myself down and, again in my sternest tones, tell myself that if I can't have it, at least a year in London and a good degree is an excellent consolation prize; and really, it is. Still, it's funny to see that while they have what I want, I have something that they want. Even my sister, whose life to me seems so well-run and complete and perfect of its kind and whom I would envy with an ill grace if she weren't such a lovely person and good, beloved sister to me.
I miss my cat. All this taking myself aside and giving my self stern talkings-to is a bit more to the side of madness than it was when he could be involved. Then it was more like being Alice through the looking glass. She had three: a cat and two kittens. Of course, things turned out rather more oddly for her than they have for me.
I find I'm on the other side and it's a strange place to be: it is strange to have something that can be envied, especially something for which I have had an incomplete desire all this unending summer. I don't know what to do with it, nor to think of it. The world has switched sides while I was otherwise occupied and I'm disoriented. That has happened fearfully often this summer but to elaborate would need another post.
Speaking of posts, this is no way to end one but I have been on an anaxiolytic-induced shambly rambling tropos all evening so I shall just give in. Did you know that in both Latin and Greek, fearfulness is such an important and prominent emotion that there are 'fear clauses' in the grammar? They are usually followed by the subjunctive, occasionally the optative in Greek (if I remember rightly - the optative is a verb mood so alien to English that I have always had a great deal of trouble distinguishing it from the subjunctive, not least because the conjugated verbs are spelt nearly exactly the same way) and even, in Greek, make use of a different negation word than most sentences. Now whenever I use 'fear' or 'fearfully' my subconscious shouts 'fear clause!' at me. I wonder whether, by virtue of lacking a formal fear clause, English is braver or just less realistic about human nature.
I have an ink stain on my couch, annoyingly: this is the price I pay for building nest on the couch out of blankets, pillows, my journal, several pens because I can never seem to find the same one twice, books of various kinds, both reference and fiction, my knitting and one or more shawls. I think I shall be quite content to be 65 and eccentric, once I get there. There used to be a cat and a pack of biscuits in there too but those have disappeared (and no, the disappearance of the biscuits was not an easy thing for me either). Somehow, the cap seems to have come off the pen - I only use ink pens for proper writing on paper - and somehow re-attached itself in the night for when I picked it up this morning, the cap was on but the pen was entirely empty and there was this big black mark. Time to get out the rubbing alcohol and old paper and rags. This has nothing to do with anything in particular so I shall return to the subject at hand...
...renewed enthusiasm. During all this knitting, pen covered, hot water bottle couch sitting, I have been watching movies set in London. I didn't start off doing that on purpose: I just picked one and then another one. Now I'm excited and my accent is doing that shifting thing that it does. We have an Oxbridgian Classics professor at the university and whenever I talk to her I get accent shift and then turn tongue-tied because I'm worried she'll think I'm making fun of her.
It's an odd, rather moth-eaten accent that I get living in England. It sounds British to Americans and American to Brits, although I do get the occasional confused inquiry as to whether I hail from Ireland or New Zealand. That mostly happens when I'm drunk. But it shifted enough today that when my sister called, she teased me about it.
She also told me she envied me a little. She hasn't been the only one to say that recently and it feels strange to me. Many of these statements come from people whom I envy. I tend to be envious of their ability to graduate from university in a normal amount of time and to hold down jobs and to settle down and get married and, in spots, enter into the property market. This has something to do with my impending 29th birthday, I'm quite sure, but a few (well, only one out of that list, to be quite honest - going to grad school has put paid to my worry over my ability to graduate with my BA, hold down a job, since I have a good reason not to for a whole year and I have no overwhelming desire to entangle myself with real estate for the time being) still hold. I only have intermittent envy over their mental boringness since I can see two sides to being mentally interesting.
I have spent the vast part of this summer longing for that one thing, as though I were a transplant from the earlier part of the 20th century. I would rather have that than an MSc, at the moment. I've had to sit myself down and, again in my sternest tones, tell myself that if I can't have it, at least a year in London and a good degree is an excellent consolation prize; and really, it is. Still, it's funny to see that while they have what I want, I have something that they want. Even my sister, whose life to me seems so well-run and complete and perfect of its kind and whom I would envy with an ill grace if she weren't such a lovely person and good, beloved sister to me.
I miss my cat. All this taking myself aside and giving my self stern talkings-to is a bit more to the side of madness than it was when he could be involved. Then it was more like being Alice through the looking glass. She had three: a cat and two kittens. Of course, things turned out rather more oddly for her than they have for me.
I find I'm on the other side and it's a strange place to be: it is strange to have something that can be envied, especially something for which I have had an incomplete desire all this unending summer. I don't know what to do with it, nor to think of it. The world has switched sides while I was otherwise occupied and I'm disoriented. That has happened fearfully often this summer but to elaborate would need another post.
Speaking of posts, this is no way to end one but I have been on an anaxiolytic-induced shambly rambling tropos all evening so I shall just give in. Did you know that in both Latin and Greek, fearfulness is such an important and prominent emotion that there are 'fear clauses' in the grammar? They are usually followed by the subjunctive, occasionally the optative in Greek (if I remember rightly - the optative is a verb mood so alien to English that I have always had a great deal of trouble distinguishing it from the subjunctive, not least because the conjugated verbs are spelt nearly exactly the same way) and even, in Greek, make use of a different negation word than most sentences. Now whenever I use 'fear' or 'fearfully' my subconscious shouts 'fear clause!' at me. I wonder whether, by virtue of lacking a formal fear clause, English is braver or just less realistic about human nature.
21 August 2009
Final Run-in With State Run Mental Health Services in North Carolina
For those of you who live in more civilised countries, let me first explain that in the US, state run mental health services are only for the uninsured and poor. In my home state, they were disastrously privatised in 2003 with more or less exactly the results one would expect.
I have been lucky that by pitching battle with them I have managed to stay under the care of a single psychiatrist for about a year and a half. He turned out to be a good one, which is more than I can say for some of his colleagues and co-workers. You can read, if you like, about one specific case worker I had who was worse than useless and more generally about the difficulties of engaging with these people. All of my readers in the UK may feel free to laugh at me but I am really looking forward to having access to the NHS next year. However bad it might be, and it doesn't sound idyllic, I have often found myself agog with envy at various descriptions even of being in hospital (they're allowed outside? they are allowed to go to the shops? they have crisis intervention teams? they have the option to see a therapist, even with a long waiting list?)
That short list of my own incredulity should give you some idea of what it's like here. Am I now a potential target for BNP anti-immigrant attacks for expressing an interest in the NHS? Or will they hold off because I'm white and English-speaking? Oh dear. I can't imagine, though, that anyone would wonder at it if they had to deal with the state of things in this country - or maybe I don't need to imagine it, just read the papers and see what the Republicans have been up to lately. It does seem to me that as I grow saner, the world has gone a bit farther off its rocker.
Anyhow, all I need do now is swing by there to pick up a copy of my chart (that will be interesting to see) to take with me and I'll be done! No more worrying that they will drop low need patients such as myself, no more worrying that the agency I'm currently enrolled with will go bankrupt (as happened last December - it took me six weeks and repeated phone calls that I would not have been able to make had I not been more or less well to get into a new one), no more worrying that I'll get a job only to have to pay for all this myself since most health insurance policies in the US don't cover mental health at all, or, if they do, have a lifetime limit that I would get through in about six months, a year at the outside.
I'm not going to miss this part of life in the US.
I have been lucky that by pitching battle with them I have managed to stay under the care of a single psychiatrist for about a year and a half. He turned out to be a good one, which is more than I can say for some of his colleagues and co-workers. You can read, if you like, about one specific case worker I had who was worse than useless and more generally about the difficulties of engaging with these people. All of my readers in the UK may feel free to laugh at me but I am really looking forward to having access to the NHS next year. However bad it might be, and it doesn't sound idyllic, I have often found myself agog with envy at various descriptions even of being in hospital (they're allowed outside? they are allowed to go to the shops? they have crisis intervention teams? they have the option to see a therapist, even with a long waiting list?)
That short list of my own incredulity should give you some idea of what it's like here. Am I now a potential target for BNP anti-immigrant attacks for expressing an interest in the NHS? Or will they hold off because I'm white and English-speaking? Oh dear. I can't imagine, though, that anyone would wonder at it if they had to deal with the state of things in this country - or maybe I don't need to imagine it, just read the papers and see what the Republicans have been up to lately. It does seem to me that as I grow saner, the world has gone a bit farther off its rocker.
Anyhow, all I need do now is swing by there to pick up a copy of my chart (that will be interesting to see) to take with me and I'll be done! No more worrying that they will drop low need patients such as myself, no more worrying that the agency I'm currently enrolled with will go bankrupt (as happened last December - it took me six weeks and repeated phone calls that I would not have been able to make had I not been more or less well to get into a new one), no more worrying that I'll get a job only to have to pay for all this myself since most health insurance policies in the US don't cover mental health at all, or, if they do, have a lifetime limit that I would get through in about six months, a year at the outside.
I'm not going to miss this part of life in the US.
16 August 2009
Maria Assumpta Est In Coelum, Angeli Gaudent
I said goodbye to my church today. It was our patronal feast day and we started down on the street corner and carried St. Mary on her litter under the canopy back into the church. For the anthem we had Arcadelt's Ave Maria and then some of my favorite hymns, including 278 (Sing we of the joys of Mary). Our last choir director wrote a descant for it specially for our choir that is very fun to sing; lots of high notes.
During announcements, our rector made me come downstairs to be bid farewell and gave me a blessing for my studies next year, which was nice but embarrassing. On top of that, our choir director asked me to sing the prayers, which is also nice and embarrassing; I sing just fine to be a choir member but my voice isn't really strong enough for me to sing by myself, at least, not in front of people. I can never quite make it, breathwise, to the end of 'Father we pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world'. The other versicles are easier because they are shorter.
Anyhow, it is strange to be leaving Our Lady of the Holy Smokes, as it is nicknamed. I was confirmed there and have been going to church there for five and a half years - I've been there longer than the current rector, I've been a choir member longer than anyone else who is currently in the choir, longer than our current choir director and organist, longer than any of the other 'young people'. We broke ground today for the new parish hall - I'm glad I was there to see it - but I'm sorry that I won't be around to see what happens next.
When I first started going to Our Lady of the Holy Smokes, there were five people under the age of forty, an interim priest who was doing things he ought not to have been doing*, no children and a rather paltry community life. As of today, our congregation has increased from around 100 active members to 150, we have enough children of varying ages that we have child altar servers, around twenty young people, gay, straight, single and married, and the median age of the parish has dropped from 54 to 39.
All of this is nice and it has been wonderful to participate in the growth of the parish but I'm going to miss my church most because it is where I discovered the mystery that is Christianity. When my then roommate and good friend dragged me off to church with her one Sunday morning, I was entirely unprepared by my lukewarm Presbyterian upbringing for the beauty and holiness of the liturgy. I spent the entire service in anxiety; on the one hand, I was enchanted by everything that was going on, on the other hand, I didn't know what to make of the statues and procession and the singing of the Regina Caeli at the end of the service. It seemed to be a good that I was going to church but was I not then guilty of idolatry? Church attendance felt like an occasion of sin. But I couldn't keep myself away the next Sunday, nor the Sunday after that, despite my initial quandary.
Confirmation didn't make the impression on me that I had hoped for - it seems to have been one of those rituals of life that comes here too early, there too late, as Forster puts it - but I will never forget the awe of God's presence that overcame me the first time I went to Benediction, nor the solemnity of my first Holy Week (Presbyterians don't really do Holy Week, at least not in my experience).
A building does not make a church, but those four walls are especially dear to me for having housed so much revelation and love. I'm heartsore at leaving my congregation and all the friends I have therein. And the choir! Will I ever again have the chance to sing Palestrina and Arcadelt and Tallis and Clemens non Papa and de Victoria again? (I do suspect myself of making a false idol of the music sometimes, hopefully not being in choir will help me get past it although I doubt I would ever be able to make my peace with a guitar led mass).
More than anything else that has happened so far this summer, leaving my church is the one thing that has made me feel, rather than know, that this part of my life is over, whether I want it to be or not. I'm scared, both of what might happen and what I might miss. When I was still studying ballet very seriously, it was a comfort to me that wherever I went, ballet class would always follow the same structure and that no matter what country I was in, I would be able to follow what was going on. Now, the structure of the mass gives me the same comfort. Even when I have been to mass in a country whose language I do not speak, I have been able to follow (excepting the sermon, of course) and say the prayers and creed and sanctus and so on quietly in English or in Latin. That will always be there, both in a church and in my heart, and ever my strength and shield.
Okay. My prose is getting a little out of control, so I should probably stop.
Everything here is over now.
* He was trying to switch the church from being part of the Episcopal church to being part of the Anglican Church in America - much more conservative and against the wishes of most of the congregation but not necessarily those of the vestry, two of whom were very wealthy and tried to throw their influence around that way and who scared off all of the candidates for the new rector by pretending that their viewpoint was the majority viewpoint over a two year period before the bishop intervened, dissolved the search committee, froze the vestry and more or less appointed our current rector - happily, I had no idea this was going on at the time or I wouldn't still be there - for something that almost split the congregation and did drive many people away, there was very little gossip.
During announcements, our rector made me come downstairs to be bid farewell and gave me a blessing for my studies next year, which was nice but embarrassing. On top of that, our choir director asked me to sing the prayers, which is also nice and embarrassing; I sing just fine to be a choir member but my voice isn't really strong enough for me to sing by myself, at least, not in front of people. I can never quite make it, breathwise, to the end of 'Father we pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world'. The other versicles are easier because they are shorter.
Anyhow, it is strange to be leaving Our Lady of the Holy Smokes, as it is nicknamed. I was confirmed there and have been going to church there for five and a half years - I've been there longer than the current rector, I've been a choir member longer than anyone else who is currently in the choir, longer than our current choir director and organist, longer than any of the other 'young people'. We broke ground today for the new parish hall - I'm glad I was there to see it - but I'm sorry that I won't be around to see what happens next.
When I first started going to Our Lady of the Holy Smokes, there were five people under the age of forty, an interim priest who was doing things he ought not to have been doing*, no children and a rather paltry community life. As of today, our congregation has increased from around 100 active members to 150, we have enough children of varying ages that we have child altar servers, around twenty young people, gay, straight, single and married, and the median age of the parish has dropped from 54 to 39.
All of this is nice and it has been wonderful to participate in the growth of the parish but I'm going to miss my church most because it is where I discovered the mystery that is Christianity. When my then roommate and good friend dragged me off to church with her one Sunday morning, I was entirely unprepared by my lukewarm Presbyterian upbringing for the beauty and holiness of the liturgy. I spent the entire service in anxiety; on the one hand, I was enchanted by everything that was going on, on the other hand, I didn't know what to make of the statues and procession and the singing of the Regina Caeli at the end of the service. It seemed to be a good that I was going to church but was I not then guilty of idolatry? Church attendance felt like an occasion of sin. But I couldn't keep myself away the next Sunday, nor the Sunday after that, despite my initial quandary.
Confirmation didn't make the impression on me that I had hoped for - it seems to have been one of those rituals of life that comes here too early, there too late, as Forster puts it - but I will never forget the awe of God's presence that overcame me the first time I went to Benediction, nor the solemnity of my first Holy Week (Presbyterians don't really do Holy Week, at least not in my experience).
A building does not make a church, but those four walls are especially dear to me for having housed so much revelation and love. I'm heartsore at leaving my congregation and all the friends I have therein. And the choir! Will I ever again have the chance to sing Palestrina and Arcadelt and Tallis and Clemens non Papa and de Victoria again? (I do suspect myself of making a false idol of the music sometimes, hopefully not being in choir will help me get past it although I doubt I would ever be able to make my peace with a guitar led mass).
More than anything else that has happened so far this summer, leaving my church is the one thing that has made me feel, rather than know, that this part of my life is over, whether I want it to be or not. I'm scared, both of what might happen and what I might miss. When I was still studying ballet very seriously, it was a comfort to me that wherever I went, ballet class would always follow the same structure and that no matter what country I was in, I would be able to follow what was going on. Now, the structure of the mass gives me the same comfort. Even when I have been to mass in a country whose language I do not speak, I have been able to follow (excepting the sermon, of course) and say the prayers and creed and sanctus and so on quietly in English or in Latin. That will always be there, both in a church and in my heart, and ever my strength and shield.
Okay. My prose is getting a little out of control, so I should probably stop.
Everything here is over now.
____________________________________________________________
* He was trying to switch the church from being part of the Episcopal church to being part of the Anglican Church in America - much more conservative and against the wishes of most of the congregation but not necessarily those of the vestry, two of whom were very wealthy and tried to throw their influence around that way and who scared off all of the candidates for the new rector by pretending that their viewpoint was the majority viewpoint over a two year period before the bishop intervened, dissolved the search committee, froze the vestry and more or less appointed our current rector - happily, I had no idea this was going on at the time or I wouldn't still be there - for something that almost split the congregation and did drive many people away, there was very little gossip.
Stuck
I keep trying to write a new post but I think I am too mired in quotidianity to write anything sensible. My critical faculties seem to have departed and so I cannot see anything about which to write. There is a distinct lack of significant form. Everything is a sort of mush. A greyish mush.
I'm back in urban Appalachia at the moment, trying to finish the packing. I have hurt my back, however, and have been lying on the couch with the hot water bottle all afternoon instead of getting anything done. I'm finding it very hard to keep still; there are too many anxiety provoking things to think about.
One thing that causes me great difficulty when I'm depressed is not being able to look forward to anything. I should be looking forward to grad school: it's something I have wanted and planned to do for almost five years. I don't seem to be able to muster much enthusiasm for it, nor for any other plan. This has bothered me not a little.
Then, last Sunday, I talked to my sister on the phone. She had just been to the beach, some friends of mine have just been to the beach, others have just gone camping. I have not had what I would consider a proper holiday in many years and I was shot through with discontent and envy on hearing that my sister had been out to the beach. I haven't done anything like that because I haven't been able to afford it or I couldn't get anyone to go with me or there wasn't time or I was too depressed or there was school; or, or, or.
However, I am now in a different position. I have a little money from graduation gifts, I have some time and I'm not depressed. After I get to London, I will have two weeks before term starts and I am going to take myself out to St. Ive's for a few days. I have found a B&B for L30 a night, the train ticket won't be too much if I book it in advance and it doesn't cost much to feed me. I'm going to have three days of walking and thinking and reading and looking at art and just being somewhere that isn't full of associations and sorrow where I won't have to talk to anyone if I don't want to. Three days of time entirely for myself.
This, I cannot wait to do. Of course, to do it, I will have to pack up my belongings, arrange my visa, move and so on. I am very glad to have found something to pin my thoughts on! Now if I could just get my back to stop hurting...
I'm back in urban Appalachia at the moment, trying to finish the packing. I have hurt my back, however, and have been lying on the couch with the hot water bottle all afternoon instead of getting anything done. I'm finding it very hard to keep still; there are too many anxiety provoking things to think about.
One thing that causes me great difficulty when I'm depressed is not being able to look forward to anything. I should be looking forward to grad school: it's something I have wanted and planned to do for almost five years. I don't seem to be able to muster much enthusiasm for it, nor for any other plan. This has bothered me not a little.
Then, last Sunday, I talked to my sister on the phone. She had just been to the beach, some friends of mine have just been to the beach, others have just gone camping. I have not had what I would consider a proper holiday in many years and I was shot through with discontent and envy on hearing that my sister had been out to the beach. I haven't done anything like that because I haven't been able to afford it or I couldn't get anyone to go with me or there wasn't time or I was too depressed or there was school; or, or, or.
However, I am now in a different position. I have a little money from graduation gifts, I have some time and I'm not depressed. After I get to London, I will have two weeks before term starts and I am going to take myself out to St. Ive's for a few days. I have found a B&B for L30 a night, the train ticket won't be too much if I book it in advance and it doesn't cost much to feed me. I'm going to have three days of walking and thinking and reading and looking at art and just being somewhere that isn't full of associations and sorrow where I won't have to talk to anyone if I don't want to. Three days of time entirely for myself.
This, I cannot wait to do. Of course, to do it, I will have to pack up my belongings, arrange my visa, move and so on. I am very glad to have found something to pin my thoughts on! Now if I could just get my back to stop hurting...
02 August 2009
Logically, I Know That The Packing Fairy Will Arrive Because I Have To Get Out of Here Somehow
I'm waiting for the packing and moving fairy to show up. I said this to a friend of mine who, to his infinite credit, did not skip a beat in replying that as far as he knew, all the fairies were on strike. Apparently the laundry fairy had failed to show up at his house; I know that the paper writing fairy never left any pleasant surprises on my desktop at the end of the last semester (or any other semester, alas...) and another friend has told me that the lesson-planning and paper-grading fairies are long-term no-shows at her house. If the packing and moving fairy doesn't come to my aid, then I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
I'm really having one of those can't cope/won't cope kinds of months.
___________________________________________________________
Just to point out how weird logic can be, here is a demonstration of modus tollens in action:
1) If the packing and moving fairy doesn't come to my aid, then I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
2) I do not have no idea how I will get out of here.
Therefore, the packing and moving fairy will not come to my aid.
And here is a modus ponens:
1) If the packing and moving fairy doesn't come to my aid, then I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
2) The packing and moving fairy did not come to my aid.
Therefore, I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
If I (a) can figure out how to get out of here, then I can know logically that the packing fairy will not come to my aid. If (b) the packing fairy does not come to my aid, then I will know logically that I will have no idea how to get out of here.
Statements such as these are the reason they invented modal logic.
I'm really having one of those can't cope/won't cope kinds of months.
___________________________________________________________
Just to point out how weird logic can be, here is a demonstration of modus tollens in action:
1) If the packing and moving fairy doesn't come to my aid, then I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
2) I do not have no idea how I will get out of here.
Therefore, the packing and moving fairy will not come to my aid.
And here is a modus ponens:
1) If the packing and moving fairy doesn't come to my aid, then I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
2) The packing and moving fairy did not come to my aid.
Therefore, I have no idea how I'll get out of here.
If I (a) can figure out how to get out of here, then I can know logically that the packing fairy will not come to my aid. If (b) the packing fairy does not come to my aid, then I will know logically that I will have no idea how to get out of here.
Statements such as these are the reason they invented modal logic.
18 July 2009
Like Creeping Damp
As the day when I'll move to my parents and away from dear old urban Appalachia approaches I find that I am losing my mind. I wish I were saying that in the colloquial sense but I am not. Somehow, ending an important relationship, giving up my cat, the prospect of double moving (first to DC, then to London) and dealing with the federal student loan system has frayed my sanity around the edges. Fancy that.
It's rather disappointing. I've been doing so well. Now around 11am and 4pm every day, I find I have to stop whatever I'm doing and lie down for a bit. I'm not much of one for tears but I find myself weeping a little with the slightest provocation - like an emotional incontinence. I feel like a specimen of Victorian female frailty. Perhaps I should go somewhere for my nerves and take a rest-cure...
My mother is going to come down and give me a hand next week. I was hoping not to have to ask her and it worries me a little to ask her (after all, won't that make her secretly hate me?) but something has to give and I'd rather it not be my mind. I need the help. I keep saying out loud - to myself alone and not the cat, alas - 'Yes, if your mother comes to help you she will secretly hate you and take it out of you in other ways.' Put that way, it is risible. My mother never takes anything out on anyone, not even the mean-spirited, gossip-mongering faction of the hospitality committee at her church. If she can forbear them - I can't, it's not even my church and I still almost lost my temper with them - then she can easily bear with me.
It'll be all right once I get up to my parents. I'm just pretty thoroughly uncomfortable, for now.
It's rather disappointing. I've been doing so well. Now around 11am and 4pm every day, I find I have to stop whatever I'm doing and lie down for a bit. I'm not much of one for tears but I find myself weeping a little with the slightest provocation - like an emotional incontinence. I feel like a specimen of Victorian female frailty. Perhaps I should go somewhere for my nerves and take a rest-cure...
My mother is going to come down and give me a hand next week. I was hoping not to have to ask her and it worries me a little to ask her (after all, won't that make her secretly hate me?) but something has to give and I'd rather it not be my mind. I need the help. I keep saying out loud - to myself alone and not the cat, alas - 'Yes, if your mother comes to help you she will secretly hate you and take it out of you in other ways.' Put that way, it is risible. My mother never takes anything out on anyone, not even the mean-spirited, gossip-mongering faction of the hospitality committee at her church. If she can forbear them - I can't, it's not even my church and I still almost lost my temper with them - then she can easily bear with me.
It'll be all right once I get up to my parents. I'm just pretty thoroughly uncomfortable, for now.
10 July 2009
Goodbye House
Well, I've finally reached the point where my household is truly breaking up. I've taken three boxes of books out to sell, my kitchen is half empty and my desk is about to make its way to Knoxville. On Monday, my cat will go to his new home and on Tuesday I will be driving half of the things I plan to keep up to my parent's house. Nearly everything else in the house is promised to someone - oddly, no one seems to want any of my 'good' furniture, such as it is. (By good I mean the furniture that I have that did not come flat-packed). If I can't sell it, I will probably end up giving it to the arts non-profit that I volunteer for or donating it to Habitat for Humanity.
I'm going to miss this apartment. I've been really happy here. I've also been spoiled by its size. I've had, for two years, two enormous closets, a bedroom, a study, a good-sized sitting room, a large bathroom and a too-small kitchen all to myself. There are so many windows - six in the sitting room alone - and each of the rooms is painted a different color. I dread the thought of being forced back into living in a flat with magnolia-painted walls. All that white and blankness - it suits truly modern buildings but to my eye is rather dismal in a converted Victorian or Georgian terrace. Those buildings were not meant to have all-white interiors.
I think, though, that London will be sufficient compensation for living in a studio flat with white walls. Perhaps I'll finally do what I've often thought of and go to Brick Lane or Berwick Street and buy enough fabric to cover at least one of the walls.
But for now, who will help me pretend that I'm not talking to myself once my cat is gone?
I'm going to miss this apartment. I've been really happy here. I've also been spoiled by its size. I've had, for two years, two enormous closets, a bedroom, a study, a good-sized sitting room, a large bathroom and a too-small kitchen all to myself. There are so many windows - six in the sitting room alone - and each of the rooms is painted a different color. I dread the thought of being forced back into living in a flat with magnolia-painted walls. All that white and blankness - it suits truly modern buildings but to my eye is rather dismal in a converted Victorian or Georgian terrace. Those buildings were not meant to have all-white interiors.
I think, though, that London will be sufficient compensation for living in a studio flat with white walls. Perhaps I'll finally do what I've often thought of and go to Brick Lane or Berwick Street and buy enough fabric to cover at least one of the walls.
But for now, who will help me pretend that I'm not talking to myself once my cat is gone?
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