:: My Divided Soul ::

Monday was my birthday. The day itself was pretty crappy. First, I woke up at 4:30am spitting, as I had a dream that I swallowed paint thinner. I was unable to get back to sleep. Later, Economics homework decided to be unpleasant. To top it all off, I found out that my car has a $500 fuel leak. This is after having gone through transmission fluid, oil, and windshield washer fluid leaks. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best birthday.

However, I had an awesome birthday celebration on Thursday with Terese, Ganesh, Milind, Eric, Gus, and Meredith. Terese and Ganesh were gracious enough to make a triple-chocolate cake, Eric brought a lovely bottle of wine, and Meredith and Gus brought a key lime pie, a candle and new playing cards. And Emma gave me a call, too!

Thanks to everyone for making it a pretty awesome night! You can see pictures of the festivities, if you’d like.

Note that the two items of the title are not related. And for that, you should be thankful. Terese and I went to New York City this past weekend. Oh, yeah. I should probably mention the fact that Terese is visiting for a month. We are having quite a lovely time.

Anyways, back to our trip. Terese has for awhile wished to see how other clothes would look on me. My “style” for the past many years has had the same recipe: one pair black casual pants; one button-down, polo, or short sleeve shirt in size medium; one pair black socks; one pair black shoes. (More recently, a pair of New Grip Wrist Supports have also becomes standard.) I have found myself very comfortable in these clothes and the consistency makes getting dressed in the morning very easy. However, I am not closed to the possibilities of trying on new clothes, especially when I get to return the favor and pick clothes for Terese.

The primary criteria Terese set forth were to try a pair of jeans and a tighter shirt. I have never owned a pair of jeans. My mother tried some on me when I was six and I cried a lot, so it was decided that they were not the kind of thing that made me particularly happy. I haven’t tried on a pair since then. That was until a week ago. The first few pairs I tried on were not very nice and I didn’t find the look particularly appealing. However, while in NYC, I managed to find a pair of jeans that did not bother me and in fact grew on me as I looked at them more. The jeans, combined with a shirt in size in XS, resulted in this:

I now own a pair of jeans and a couple tighter shirts. I’m finding the tighter shirts to be pretty appealing and I think my wardrobe is likely to diversify. I don’t imagine I will own a second pair of jeans just yet, but the ones I now own will find their way into regular rotation. I just have to figure out which part of my personality they reflect.

New York City brought some other fun things, too. We got to go see Queen + Paul Rodgers. Terese has been a big Queen fan for many years and they conveniently decided to play a show in New York while she was visiting. I’m not very familiar with Queen material, so it’s hard for me to say much about the show. I found the lighting for the show very well done. The drummer was also quite a good player, although his grip was one I have not seen before. I’m sure Terese will comment on it on her weblog at some point, but reading it may require danskkundskaber.

Another highlight was definitely getting to hang out with Chethan, who recently moved to NYC so he could pull the eyes out of rodents. I haven’t seen him since he went to LA. I think one sign of a good friendship is when you can start hanging out with a person again after having not seen him for awhile and it’s like nothing has changed. I know, I know, that is quite a cliché. But that does not make it any less true. That’s how it felt seeing Chethan again. We talked about all sorts of things just like before and his sense of humor is quite the same. I think I shall have to make an effort to go to NYC to hang out with him occasionally.

The final part of our trip was going to the Full Moon ceremony at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. If you are ever in New York City, I highly recommend you go to this place (Chethan, I am looking at you). It is the gallery of the artist Alex Grey, whose work I find extremely intriguing and thought provoking. I have both Theologue and InterBeing hanging in my house. The two times I have visited the place are the closest I have had to a “religious experience” I have ever had. The Chapel is a spiritual place, but not in the horrible way a church full of those blindly following an organized religion is. When I look at the paintings on the wall, when I hear the music of the live musicians playing drums, violins, gongs, and bowls, I feel something inside.

The Full Moon celebration was no exception. A large group of people of all ages, races, and backgrounds assemble on a monthly basis to do a little collective prayer and then dance, mediate, or anything-else-they-want the night away. On this night, Terese and I sat in the Chapel and took in the paintings and the surroundings as a ceremony taking place in the packed room next door was displayed on the wall. Later, we sat in between two gongs as they were played quietly and tried to focus the energy of the sound into each other. We topped the night off with dancing to the overwhelming sound of drums and hand percussion played by professionals and amateurs alike. I was tempted to join the playing myself, but decided against it this first time. The sound really does just compel one to move. Everyone from young slender African-American girls through middle-aged white men were dancing, not concerned about looking funny, not worried about what others might think.

If you sit back and think about it for too long, the whole Full Moon ceremony can seem a bit absurd, particularly if you read the description: “By joining in prayer we will create a vast field of prayer to influence our collective dream into reality.” I would agree that there are people who take the whole thing way too seriously, making it seem like a support group you’d find in Fight Club. Nevertheless, the goal of finding out more about ourselves is admirable and something it doesn’t hurt any of us to strive for. There is an unmistakable feeling of peace for me while in there. I am quite certain that any return trips to NYC will include a stop at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors for me. And if I ever live there, I guarantee I will be a member.

So in conclusion, New York city is fun, Chethan is a cool friend, jeans no longer make me cry, and sacred mirrors make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. If you feel so inclined, check out pictures from the trip.

I try to be a down-to-earth, relaxed TA most of the time. I teach two sections of CS 100J this semester, the same class I TAed last semester. My job is to give the students a lab assignment for them to do as I and my consultants walk around and help them one-on-one.

Today, my first section finished at 2:15, with a few students hanging around to finish up their labs as usual. Around 2:25, as I was helping a student, a professor walks in and starts saying “this is the Chem E. tutorial…” I say, “Excuse me, but I hold CS 100J here now.” He proceeds to get an attitude and sniped back, “Well, it’s not on the reserve list!” I told him that I had been holding class here since the first week of class and that we’d have to talk to the operators of the lab. He continues his “it’s not on the schedule” “let’s go look at the schedule” statements in a not-so-pleasant voice.

Normally when dealing with other people who are heated, I can remain rather calm, I’d like to think. One of the big exceptions to this is when people are rude or disrespectful to me, particularly in a professional setting. I believe in a certain etiquette among professors, instructors, and even teaching assistants. When someone violates the respect I feel I should have, it makes me…displeased.

The way I see it, I am here trying to help my students and this professor has no right to jump in and interrupt me and presume to take over the room when I am not done yet, whether he is entitled to the room or not. I certainly informed him of this fact, telling him he was rude and disrespectful to not wait outside of the room until I was done and, if he had concerns about use of the room, to come and talk to me instead of walking to the front of the room and starting his lecture, particularly since he was early. I mean, if he knew anything about the makeup of his class, he would have noticed that none of these students in the room were his. When he said he was going to be having class at 2:30, I ended my conversation with him with, “Well, it is now only 2:26.”

In the end, it seems there was a mix up and my class in fact did not have the room reserved. I have since talked to the professor I work with (David Gries, awesome professor to TA for extraordinaire) about reserving the lab. However, the Chem E professor’s right to use the room was not the problem. It was the manner in which he approached the situation. If he had simply walked up to me and said, “Excuse me, but I think my class has this room reserved for this time period,” I would have responded that I think my class had it reserved, at which point we would have walked over to the schedule, noticed he was correct, and moved my class to another room. Not a big deal. He chose to get a defensive attitude from the beginning, disrespecting my students, my consultants, and me.

As could not be helped, I was a bit riled up after that encounter as I took my students downstairs to another lab. Many of them got to see my little “discussion” with the Chem E. professor. Before I started class, I said to my students, “Haven’t you always wanted to yell at a professor? That felt so good.” They laughed and I laughed, which was really the intention; I had no reason to be heated around them and make them uncomfortable during their section. I hope we have not destroyed Chem E.-CS relations, though…