Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023 - 14:35 pm.
The holiday season is sneaking up on me. I realized* just this morning that Christmas is next week. I check my calendar constantly but to keep up with work and personal engagements. I hadn't registered that the 24th is THE 24th, a date that was once so fucking dear to me as I was growing up.
I want to thank my family, myself and Simeon for making me love Christmas so much. Most things that brought me joy are not at my reach at this point in my life, but my family's still around and the nostalgia and feel-good memories remain.
*Just a silly comment: I hesitated whether to write "realized" or "realised". I've marginally spoken US English since I was a child, but I lived in the UK for four years, so encountering these spelling decisions cause me a short-circuit. So it goes as English, any kind of English, isn't my first language.
Anyway.
It is common knowledge at uni that the second semester is always The Worst. I spent this week closing my undergrad course, and I am mortified about it to the point of tears. I had two modules of about 40 students each. I would have failed 85% of the class if I'd stuck to the short-answer test as the only evaluation. In the end everyone but three students passed because I got too fucking soft when marking the main assignment, a practical guide to learn about and support people from LGBTQI+ communities (e.g., gay men, bisexual people, people exploring their gender identity, etc.).
I've felt like a bad teacher because not everyone who passed deserved it. I try not to be too hard on myself as it was my first time teaching this unit. It was my first time teaching an undergrad course at all, one that was my own. I only had six weeks to teach about gender and sexuality. I once heard that this course, Psychologity and Diversity, was a blow-off class and I absolutely forgot about that until the semester ended and I looked back on it. Indeed, I was lucky if 20 students attended the lectures.
And I'm sorry, but my lectures were awesome! My PhD student and my new-found friend who gave me a plant went to a few of my classes and they were amazed by the content. I may not be the best speaker, but I gave them very refined content on heteronormativity, strategic disclosure and intersexuality as a human rights issue, among other things. This goes beyond the usuall stuff we see about "LGBT people" here.
So it breaks my heart that all my efforst were for nothing. My unit was so short and the students as a group were so disinterested that there wasn't even a chance for feedback. And they sorely needed it. Two students did come by to revise their test. One was pretty cool, down right to her green hair, and open to learn about her mistakes. The other took out her phone to read me something from the internet she thought was the correct answer, nevermind that it was wrong and the correct answer was in the lecture slides I provided.
This last bit sends me reeling still, a few days after it happened. I'm not sure if she attended class, she clearly hadn't read the material I took months to curate, and now she was here very much saying that I didn't know what I was talking about because that was not what she found on Google. I should've told her this, instead of enduring her ongoing questioning of what is the difference between sexual identity and gender identity then.
This was the same day that another student took my test as he'd missed it on the original date (and I'd never seen him before), and then complained that the time for the test was too short, because the instructions on the test said he had two hours. Well, the instructions also said it was December 7th and it wasn't, because I was re-using a copy of the original test (plus, the email to inform him about this test stated it wasn't going to be two hours). At that point I didn't even bother writing a new test. It was clear most students didn't touch the material or didn't quite have a grasp on how studying works. I could have used the same test on different groups of students from the course and I think they'd always get almost everything wrong.
(This student also answered a question that included the statement "as seen in class" with something not seen in class)
Since Wednesday when I started summing up all the grades, I've felt like crying. I passed students who didn't deserve it. This is a blow-off class. I worked my ass off for months to put together a killer syllabus on gender and sexuality. They didn't read a damned thing. I couldn't be too strict (they do come with flaws in their training that I can't fully blame on them). I feel like a joke. This stupid student comes and tells me that I don't know what I'm talking about because it's not what Google says.
I should stop talking about this because I just get too angry and frustrated. The students weren't bad. I mean, most of those who showed up at least knew how to say hello, but I'm very unhappy with the whole experience. I'm angry at how this course is set up (six weeks to talk about gender and sexuality, six weeks to talk about the Mapuche people, just two random markers put together to say hey, diversity!), I'm angry at the students' indolence, I'm angry at how I'm not quick enough to respond properly to dumb students.
Let's be done with work talk for now.
Happy news: the purchase of our apartment came through, the apartment is officially ours!!! We've been living here for almost two months now because we offered to pay rent to the former owner while the paperwork was done. It was a great thing to do. It was a bit of a financial sacrifice, but otherwise we would still be in our old apartment and just preparing to move out.
More news, although unclear on whether they are good or bad: on December 29th, we will attend the meeting with the adoption office to know whether we'll be allowed to adopt or not. They've taken forever to respond. There's been a pandemic in between, but it's still ridiculous to think that it's been four years since we signed up for the adoption process and we still don't know if we can adopt or not.
With this topic in mind, I suppose it's good that I haven't stopped to think about the holidays much. Today Andrew and I were doing some holiday shopping and I saw some toys, and I had to look away before I got emotional. I was a happy child for Christmas, and this is the time when I feel a particular type of pain for all I had, for all I wish I could give to another child, and for what many children do not have.
Speaking of family, my dad's preparing to release another book, and it was my mom's 85th(!) birthday a few days ago and she spent it in her hometown. These things make me incredibly happy because my parents are very prone to stay home and be miserable. Instead, my dad has been going out for coffee with a friend ("a fellow poet") who's helping him with the book, and my mom, well, she went out to the first place where she was happy and loved. I mean, they're doing things for themselves outside the house. God bless, man.
Yikes. With all that's been going on, I've been sort of oblivious to the fact that people here are voting for or against a new Constitution tomorrow. I get a pit in my stomach just thinking about it. I can't vote here yet but you bet your ass I'd be voting against a Constitution that's even worse than the one enforced during the dictatorship. Keep forsaken Latin America in your thoughts and prayers, and hope that this shit is rejected.
Lastly, I've been trying to get back into the creative groove. I haven't fully started (haha), but I'm modestly jumping in and out of my happy place and that alone feels so good.