Parsnips. Again.

I want to blog about my job SO MUCH. It's the only thing I do or think about anymore and everyday something happens that could be a blog entry. Or six. I know that I can't talk about *any* of it, I know this, but some days the temptation is so strong that I just can't blog about anything for fear that suddenly all the job-related cray-cray will come barreling out. It really is a recipe for disaster even if everything I type is exactly 100% true to my knowledge. The truth isn't the point. And really, it probably isn't even that interesting - I refer you back to the statement where I said my job is the only thing I do and think about so, by default, it is the best and worst part of my day.

Suffice it to say: it isn't a fall semester if I don't have some exhausting autistic kid with a crush on me. In movies, it's always the smarmy playa lit Prof with the turtleneck and fancy car (?!) that gets all the "Love Yous" written on the eyelids. Or the outrageously attractive blonde-woman-genius prof who is fatally romanced by some hunky undergrad who turns out to be a serial killer and the whole plot is really just a made-for-TV tale of how women are in danger if they leave the private sphere. Or the TAs get all the action (with impunity). Or the students sleep with all the TAs and profs with complete impunity because everyone is cool with it and that's just how it is in Cool Workplace - except for the obligatory prenancy scare/harassment lawsuit during sweeps months. But I think the usual story is this: lonely, freakish 20-something bugs the shit out of fav prof because s/he mistakes friendly customer service for some kind of epic connection. The title of this episode is called, "Please just get the fuck out of my office so I can write the lecture for tomorrow."

Sycophants are at least easy to manage, but autistic kid thinks its fun (? or whatever fun is in his world) to challenge fav prof on EVERYTHING. Finally, in latest sitting duck office hour marathon session I mentioned that there might be a gender-and-authority angle to this need to test the prof and he responded: "Oh no, I've done this with lots of profs. I had one professor who said to me: if you're not challenging me, why are you sitting beside me at the front of the room wearing a blazer with elbow pads and pretending to smoke a pipe? So don't worry, it's not about gender. I mean, there might be some gender stuff because I do notice that you are female but I have this problem with lots of classroom situations." So for sure I'm not worried now. Autistic kid is in all my classes this semester.

And I've already said too much.

The vegetables continue to get delivered. That is not code for anything - I am not referring to my students or my lectures or my colleagues as vegetables. I refer to actual vegetables. This was in the latest batch:
They are 10,000 useless, dirty, sandy carrots about the size of a pinky. Wtf. Not only do they give me the willies, they are an actual representation of The Willies. Along with these beauties came 7 parsnips, which is just mean. Vegetable gods, are we really at the parsnip stage already? Am I going to be eating a steady stream of beets and parsnips and shitty carrots now until the spring? I will have to buy a goat.

Everyone has those moments when you find yourself in a situation and suddenly the camera angle changes to wideangle god-shot and you look down on creation and realize every single thing is completely absurd. These are usually welcome parts of my day but they can also be dangerous: once, in Genetics class in the '90s, I had a moment of crazy when I realized that everyone in the 300+ lecture hall had one of those clicky 4-colour ball-point pens (remember those?) and everytime the prof would change colours on the overhead projector sheets he was writing on (remember that?) everyone else in the lecture hall would change colours with a resounding CLICK. He was the conductor to a 300-person orchestra of clicky pens. I flipped out for exactly a year and half after that. There were other circumstances surrounding the flip-out, to be sure, but that was the Archduke Ferdinand. But, bygones. That's what your early '20s are for, right?

Instead of talking more about my job, I bring you the following: things that reliably cause a Moment like what I'm talking about above.

1. Every time I flip by a French channel and its showing an American movie or TV show that is dubbed in French. Like, Californication or Field of Dreams. For fans of Californication, it was the "stinky pinky" scene that I came across and I wish to hell that I could remember how they translated all that. Also, perhaps this scene is making me hate my carrots more.

2. Every time I see a Friends rerun. A Friends rerun in French will probably cause a clicky-pen-like breakdown but I haven't come across that perfect storm just yet.

3. Invigilating exams in the big gyms where I walk down a massive row of students, turn around to walk back, and realize that I can see all of their ass cracks coming out of their pants. Rows and rows and rows of crack.

4. Every time I see groups of woo-girl students greet each other with, "Hey, Bra!" I guess it's like the ubiquitous use of the word, "Dude" but also recalls that movie North Shore where I, like Sarah Vowell, was introduced to key Hawaiian surfer-gang slang.

5. Every time I give a lecture and hear nothing but "Shit, fuck, cock, balls," as my inner monologue during said lecture. Which is to say: every time.