time capsules + holiday spirit

Babes and bots, 

I hope you're getting the weather you want, waking up at the time you want, getting as many hours of sleep as you want, eating what you want, drinking what you want, and being very fucking merry. As many of you know, I am a GTA and teach introductory composition courses at Colorado State University. This semester, my first of six, was groovy, demanding, irritating, and eye-opening. Part of me is like *eye-roll* kids these days! Another part of me is a bleeding heart. Many days, I have a "fuck you" mentality in my job. Many other days, I do not. 

tough teaching moments of note in 2022

My favorite student was failing and then dropped the class. End of story. 

I brought cookies into class one day to encourage participation. The fuckers said nothing. 

I thought of the number of 24-year-old men I dated in college and cringed because I am now a 24-year-old college teacher who many of my students call "Professor" despite correction. 

I went above and beyond my pay grade to help a student not only pass but get an A despite missing four weeks of class. I held on until the last possible second to submit their final grade. They send me that last assignment worth 20% of their grade 12 minutes past the deadline. Standing in line at the Post Office, I received an email from said student with two beautiful attachments and very audibly said "are you fucking kidding me." Later, as I was called to the desk, I handed a blank package to a USPS employee named Ashley. She asked if this package had a name and address, and I said "yes," and then she said "where," and I said "in my head. It's all in my head." Turns out even teachers can't do their homework. 

spring cleaning in December

So when I finished grading and submitting my own finals and crying and sleeping I decided to clean my entire house and finally unpack the last box in my bedroom. It took all day. My wonderful partner cleaned the vacuum so it worked like a charm, I dusted every floorboard in the house. 

My dad was a tidy person, and my mom is a clean person. So, as you can imagine, when the old men compliment you and tell you that you have the best of your mother and father, this now means you are clean AND tidy. Oh goody! To the dismay of my partner, this desire to have cleanliness and tidiness in an apartment is both irritating and time-consuming...for both of us. My new goal in life is to have a very small house and collect nothing. 

time capsule time

Okay, so back in college I was in a poetry class. For our last session, my professor told us that our work is often five years ahead of where we are emotionally. We were instructed to create a collage of our poems from the semester and put them in an envelope that we would open exactly 5 years later. Mine was to be opened on the 12th of this month, but I opened it yesterday. I had no idea what I wrote, or what I intended to write. I thought back to who I was as a writer during that time, how attached to sound and semantics I was before I found meaning in other forms, and how clueless I was to exactly how artists even make meaning in the first place (that is, through honesty). The poem I wrote was 5 years ahead of me in a way...it showed how much I wanted to sound like a writer and how little purpose I had in my writing until very recently. This work is a scaffold for the intention and cross-disciplinary dialogue I hope to achieve now. And it is very representative of how I read poetry, which is ironic for someone who still identifies as a poet. 

I wonder what I wanted to say, how I wanted to express myself, and what I could have said more honestly, more plainly. I remember the feedback I received from a local poet. They told me that sometimes it is better to just "say the thing" and I see that so clearly here. What was it, exactly, that I came to the page to say? This is not clear. Perhaps if I were famous, people would simply make the meaning for me. But this is not the case, nor do I wish to imply that famous poets do little work. What I mean to say is that had I already been successful, perhaps my work would be taken seriously. Not out of merit, but out of trust. And perhaps all poetry should be read as though a famous poet wrote it. Perhaps critique does not make enough room for nonsense to flourish, and perhaps nonsense is what I needed at the time I wrote these poems...

Thanks for taking a bite out of the sandwich with me. I hope you have the chance to spend this holiday season with the ones you love and care to spend it with. 

xoxo BLT