36 Trouble

I think the worst diagnosis I ever got from a trained professional was given to my by the shrink at the University of Utah student health center, way back in the mid-80s.  Do I know this because I looked up the descriptors of the diagnosis in the DSM-IV?  Heck no!  I know because I was catching up with This American Life on podcast and heard a story of someone who had a real, honest, true diagnosis of the condition.

In a story that aired on March 14, 2014, John Gravois tells the story of Giulietta Carrelli, a woman whose schizoaffective disorder kept exploding her life until she finally found people who guided her into starting a small business.   It's an amazing story.  You can find the transcript here or listen to it  here.  Carrelli's coffee shop, Trouble Coffee, is in the Sunset District of San Francisco.  It's the place where the foodie toast fad, with its $3 slices, began. 

When I listened to the story, I realized how wrong that Utah shrink had been about me.  I've never heard voices.  I've never gotten lost in space.  His idea that I had a schizoaffective disorder was based on one interview with me during which I continually articulated my self-monitoring observations of my own rhetorical behaviors.  So he was probably hearing word-salad while I was just being a communication graduate student.  I suppose he added in the results of my MMPI -- he told me that the "anger" measurement was very high.  Anyway, that shrink's recommendation was that I drop out of graduate school because it would only make my symptoms worse.

But that wasn't my problem.  I'm not sure what my "problem" is.  I've been diagnosed as depressed but lately I haven't been feeling the old anhedonia like I used to.

But proof that the Utah shrink was an idiot wasn't the only thing I loved about this story.   What I most appreciated was the importance the story gave to "weak ties."  Weak ties are superficial social relationships, relationships with people with whom we are not deeply intimate.  Both Carelli's survival and success are based on "weak ties."  In the Pacific Standard article on which the radio story is based, Gravois writes,

"Most of us dedicate the bulk of our attention to a handful of relationships: with a significant other, children, parents, a few close friends. Social scientists call these “strong ties.” But Carrelli can’t rely on such a small set of intimates. Strong ties have a history of failing her, of buckling under the weight of her illness. So she has adapted by forming as many relationships—as many weak ties—as she possibly can. And webs of weak ties are what allow ideas to spread."

She makes those weak ties by talking with the people in her coffee shop, taking the same route to work every day, wearing the same outfit so that people will recognize her, and talking briefly with folks on the street.  She needs to know that if she gets lost she can ask someone the way and people will know and recognize her.

This is a simple yet wonderful survival strategy.  Hearing about it helps me to think through my future.  I also have a history of not doing very well with strong ties.  For whatever reasons (nature or nurture -- my folks' messy DNA or their training method of intermittent reinforcement) I have tended to sail through realms of the imaginary when I get into deeply intimate relationships.  So, though I've spent much of my life seeking strong ties, they have generally not been the type that held me up and kept me safe.  Instead, it's been the weak ties I've experienced, my workplace relationships, my students,  that have been of great importance, keeping me steady and located in a real place in a real time.

The greatest challenge of retirement will be creating a new system of "weak ties" so I don't go floating, balloon like, into the spaces of my mind.

Here is great advice from Carrelli's Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club website:

STAY TRUE TO YOUR HOUSE. FABRICATE  CONSCIOUSNESS. THE TRUTH IS YOU. THIS IS A SIMPLE INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE. GET IN TROUBLE. MOVEMENT iS A COLLECTIVE ART THAT RELIES ON PARTICIPAPANTS. BUILD YOUR OWN DAMN HOUSE. WE WILL HELP. LEAD WITH WHAT YOU KNOW. MAINTAIN GUTS AND HONOR. BE GRACEFUL. LIVE NOW. COMPOSE. SHED THE LIGHT ON HOW THE MIND  WORKS. CONSTRUCT YOUR PERCEPTIONS. JOIN US IN OUR DANCE. SONGS WORK."

LY #57 The Retirement Meeting and the Tech Wall

Today I visited with Sally Sorenson, our new H.R. director, who went over some of the key issues related to my upcoming retirement.  It was a pleasant meeting because Sally is a very pleasant person.  She was also wearing a very attractive jacket stitched with a pattern of autumn leaves.

The question most important to the school is, "Are you planning to continue working part time."

"No.  Nope,  nyet,  keine Möglichkeit,  pas de temps partiel, ho finito con l'insegnamento!"  Well, I didn't really add all that emphasis.  But you get the idea.

We agreed that instead of bolting right after turning my grades in on June 19, I would take until June 30 to get my stuff moved out of my office.   I asked about getting emeritus status which, according to H. R. 11-3.2 means that I may

Receive bulletins, announcements, and other publications of the College; participate in commencement; be listed in the College catalog; receive free admissions to all regular College events; full use of the College library; full use of Computer Center services; attend the annual professional retreat of the College; use of an office set aside for emeritus; receive occasional and limited secretarial assistance for pre-approved projects related to the College of the individual's discipline; be listed in the Speakers Bureau.

We also chatted about the big issue -  health insurance - and my three decision making choices:  OEBB, PERS, or the Marketplace.  How I look forward to doing that research.  Much as I look forward to my next trip to the dentist.

While visiting the H. R. offices I also chatted about what PERS does with my left over sick leave days.  The person who reports them is Shelley Huckins, a delightful blonde person who is a head honcho in payroll.  Now she has a truly important and necessary job.  She talked about how the recently retired payroll poobah, Lori O.,  is trying to get used to going shopping or to the movies in the afternoon.  Payroll work is what I think of as a "real job" (as opposed to teaching college).  People who have "real jobs" usually don't get more than a week or three of vacation every year.  And as Shelley noted, it was only a couple of years ago that anyone in the college payroll office was able to take more than one week off at a time.  I thought about what a luxury it's been to have summers and winter holidays off for most of the past 25 years.  Time is as good as wealth.

I wound up telling them both about my current tech-wall.  I shared that when I first came to COCC I was shocked by this one senior faculty member who never touched a keyboard and expected the "secretaries" to type up his classroom assignments (he didn't have syllabi so he didn't require those to be typed).   Now I have become that guy.  As you know from last night's screed,  I have hit the tech wall.  The thought of having to text my students or letting them text me just seems so, so.... misguided.  A violation of the fourth wall, if you will.

Not that I hate all things softwareish.  I will indeed be introducing new techniques to my tired old brain but they will be in service of its right side.  I look forward to doing more with movie making, sound editing, and photo manipulating softward -- just no more techademia.   

That part of my brain is full.

LY #15: The last first day of classes

Today has been my last first day of classes.  Well, actually tomorrow is my last first day, if we count actually meeting a class face to face.

Returning each fall is exciting and scary.  I spend so much of my summers working by myself that jumping back into the large group setting of a classroom inside a large institution is always a bit of a shock, like leaping into a lake fed by a glacier.  Bracing!

My husband used to say that the first couple of years he was retired he only missed school in the fall. I imagine I'll share that fate.  So we plan to travel in the fall.

Birdy Fall 2012

In the old days, when I spent some of my summers in school, first as a student and then as a teaching assistant, I wasn't as challenged by my return to the classroom because I hadn't been so long away from it.  But whether or not I've spent my summers free or as a wage slave,  I've always looked forward to getting back to the regular school year. 

Not that I haven't been anxious!  It used to  take me time to get over the culture shock of new people and a new "leader" each year. Even so, once I had the situation sussed each year I enjoyed most of my classroom. I enjoyed learning and "being myself" in a way I couldn't at home.  Now that I'm a teacher, it's topsy turvy and I'm more "myself" at home than I am at school! 

Nw Wall St. Fall 2012

I also enjoy the first day because it's associated both with my birthday and the sad exaltation of autumn, my favorite time of year.  The time of the red trees.

Last Year #1: Retirony

Today is auspicious.  It marks the first day of my last contracted teaching "year."  Not that I've signed my last contract yet.  I called H.R. on Friday and found out that contracts won't be ready until tomorrow.  So, I have no contract though I'm back on contract.

I have a bit of paranoia about this final year as I count down the days till July 1, 2014.  I am a life long movie and television watcher with a strong attachment to detective plots and police procedurals.  There is a tradition in these genres that subsidiary characters who are looking forward to leaving their difficult jobs will face death shortly before they get their reward.  Richard Roeper's written review of "After Earth" mentions this plot device:  "It's the last mission before the general retires to a desk life.  Cop movies, heist films, and futuristic sci-fi thrillers all have that in common:  You say you're going to retire after one last job, and that job is going to go BOOM."

This is a  media "trope" called "retirony."  According to the occasionally excellent and occasionally awful but always interesting website, TVTRopes,  Retirony  "is a way to make the audience feel sorry for a character's death without having to actually give him more than ten minutes of screen time. Anybody in a dangerous job who's only a few days away from retirement . . . is absolutely doomed to death by Retirony."   I first became conscious of this plot device as a "trope" when I saw the movie Last Action Hero.  I've captured a scene from it that you can view here:  http://www.screencast.com/t/RuyTvOvm.

Of course, a community college professor imagining that her life is as exciting as that of a screen cop is redonkulous.   Nevertheless, it's true that "no one knows the day or the hour" of her own death.  (Yes, I know that quote is originally about an event not quite so personal, but I figure that one's own death is the end of some world, if not the world.)  It might be an interesting experiment to live this year as though it's my last.