Oh hey, its been a while. Soz, I just don’t have the same inspiration to write unless something is the perfect balance of “this pisses me off” and “I can be witty about it.”
Last week, in an unlikely encounter resulting from a demonstration on how Tinder works at a work dinner, I met a most endearing young man. Ironically, throughout my demonstration, I’d been dismissing the app as something far less than a place to meet a man of any sort of calibre (even by my standards). Next minute, I found myself talking to a 26 year old (age appropriate?!?!?!) Teacher/Journalist with three masters degrees on top of his B/Journalism and Grad Dip Ed. He’d worked as a producer at Channel 9 and at the school around the corner from me – this man is all of my dream careers in one, as well as being funny and quite charming.
Needless to say I was quite interested. We spoke several evenings in a row and at some point I discovered that he is also a published academic. When I asked what he’d written, he responded saying that his interests were quite varied, and that he’d written several articles from “[something boring about history]” to “the feminist entrepreneurialism of webcam sex”.
Come again.
Lets recap. This guy was already shaping up to be Janie’s custom creation Ken doll, and THEN he reveals that he has not only taken an interest in the pornography industry to such an extent that he’s written a 20 page peer reviewed article about it, but in doing so he has taken an approach to feminism which allows him to argue that exposing oneself on webcam for money is an excellent opportunity for women to be free and independent entrepreneurs *high five*.
*just imagine me pulling my clothes back on as they fall off at this point*
We’ll get back to Wonderman in a minute, but indulge me in a rapid segue here: I’ve never been a strong reader. I never liked it as a kid, I never really read books, and I could count on my hands the number that I’ve actually read from cover to cover. The Catcher in the Rye is my only claim to fame… the rest are all Roald Dahl or Janet Evanovich. Eek.
Despite this, I’ve always done well in English and History and Philosophy and all of those heavy reading subjects, so much so that I’ve chosen to pursue a career in teaching them myself. I guess I figured that if I could get through Year 12 Extension English with Sparknotes and audio books, I could get through teaching them the same way… Or I just did NOT think this through.
I guess I also figured that my reading issue was more of a distaste than an impairment.
Now that I’m at university (well, I am this week anyway – it varies), the demand for reading is approx. 4985932 times higher, both in quality and quantity. I try to take many of the same shortcuts. I don’t even bother giving an article more than a glance at the abstract unless I absolutely have to. I get by using “command-f” and searching for key words, reading other students’ contributions on the article on our discussion board, and if I really really have to know the content, then further reading is a whole big charade involving a lot of printer ink, highlighters, coloured pens, text-to-speech technology and involuntary naps (but actually).
Now comes the clincher: You would think that if I was ever going to be willing and able to give an academic paper a solid read, it would be the one written by Wonderboy about the camgirls. Amiright? I mean further to just being thoroughly impressed that someone would write on that topic, I was genuinely interested in the academic analysis of the same. Nerd + sex = my jam.
Needless to say, it didn’t happen. I got a solid couple of pages in, which, granted, is better than most efforts. But sooner rather than later, I find myself reading the same sentence so many times without absorbing the meaning that I either become frustrated and disenchanted, or somehow sick of the sound of a sentence before I’ve comprehended its meaning, if that’s even possible.
Its at this stage that I can no longer deny that what plagues me is more than a distaste for reading. I have so much motivation, I so want to read those articles- and not just Wonderboy’s. I do have a genuine interest in the academic material that I’m assigned but beyond that, I so want to be a teacher… I was so born to be a teacher. I’ve found fake report cards that I used to write for my parents with “Miss Burgess” written on the bottom. I used to make them “sit on the mat and be quiet” at the age of 4. In my work as a teacher aide, some teachers inspire me and others make me scream what I would do better in my head. I so valued my teachers in high school and I want to support young angsty people in the way that I was supported.
But I have dropped out and re-enrolled in uni courses so many times that I’ve lost count – I think, at this stage, I’ve actually dropped out of more courses than I’ve completed. I graduated high school with an OP of 2, placing me roughly in the top 2% in my state. I got into the hardest law school to get into in the state. Now, I am enrolled in a university course with no entry requirement. I study one subject at a time, and receive extensions whenever I want them. On a scale where 4 is a pass and 7 is a HD, my GPA is 4.71. I’m halfway through my 8th course, which means that in 5 weeks I will be where one should be at the end of their first year. This is my fourth.
Cognitive impairment is by far my biggest struggle.
Everything else that I’ve written about so far is frustrating and upsetting at times, but generally manageable. Physical limitations and the emotional challenges that come with chronic illness are no bother compared to any threat to the one shining glimmer of hope that this uncoordinated, practically retarded and socially inept little girl has: my brain.
The fabulous news is that there is one treatment left that I haven’t tried yet – a drug that will increase my blood pressure, hopefully improving the brain fog. The uncertainty is that it may not be my low BP that is causing the issue. In that case, it will be difficult to pinpoint what it is, and it may or may not be cured with my POTS- which may or may not spontaneously disappear altogether sometime between now and when I turn 30.
As you can imagine, this brings about quite a crossroads for me. I could be in this condition for the rest of my life. I could worsen. Or I could get completely better. The unknown nature of my condition makes it impossible to pick a future career with any certainty. The fact that I may not be able to be a teacher – both because I can’t complete the degrees and because I wouldn’t be able to function as one at this level of impairment – is something that I am only just coming to terms with.
Being ruthlessly logical, I should pursue something else and come back to uni if I get better. It actually seems stupid to continue pursuing anything that requires a university degree at this point. And I just don’t know where to go with that conclusion.
#staytuned #Janiemarriesrich
Invisible Squared 