I'm at that stage in the quarter when the students start complaining about everything. Probably later in Fall Quarter than it is during the rest of the school year.

What I want to know: Are there any low-level comp classes that don't include this state of affairs? Are there actually jobs where people, as a whole, spend as much time noticing what they're being given as they do crapping on those who don't give 'enough'? Is this an American thing? (My ESL students always seem more confused and frustrated, but more grateful in the end when I care enough to do as much as I can... more careful to balance saying "I don't get it" with "I appreciate your time.") Why is it predominately the guy students who give me grief (unless I call them out, which I don't enjoy doing), especially as they get older? Are the female students just less forthcoming about their dissatisfaction? Do they think I am crappy too, but are just conditioned not to say it? Or maybe it's about the age difference, but if that's so, how am I supposed to cater to the intellectual necessities of those my own age (and thus capable of their own intelligent engagement) and those of children not even out of high school, all at the same time? I try to capture what might interest me, my friends, and those I respect who are different from me, but certainly I can't speak to everyone.

I can't help remembering how even a girl I dated reported 'circulating rumors' of my class being all busy-work, and useless.

How am I supposed to gauge the effectiveness of my pedagogy when I'm supposed to help students achieve really difficult tasks that have little immediate reward, but all in a short period of time? Maybe I am a bad teacher... but how would I know, for real? It's so confusing, and for awhile it's satisfying because I like the material, and I believe in the form of awareness, but then students rebel, and I find myself searching their writing for signs of movement just to determine my own worth, which is silly, I think, because their writing is their own. Their decisions, their thoughts, their attempts. Not mine.

But if they are frustrated and unsatisfied, how am I supposed to see my own involvement: as just another part of their frustrating, time consuming process, or as a well-intentioned person who comes short of providing the learnin' they need?

And I want to whine a great deal about how close, despite my two grad degrees, to the poverty belt I get paid, about having to work two other temp-jobs to earn basic money that would get me nowhere if I weren't living on my mom's property. But the truth is that the second grad degree I took was totally for me, selfish-like and in love with learning, and the first grad degree maybe only partially offset my ridiculous bachelors degree in something I didn't really want to follow (I could've made that one work, but would have had to put at least partially aside the creative part of myself, although I suspect that in the long run the diligence might have been rewarding). It's not the student's fault that I'm not clear on whether this is a professional choice or a default choice, and it's not their fault I always feel pulled in so many directions.

But how do people find it possible to work as an adjunct for so many years, when neither paid well nor respected for their service? Or attempts at service, as I often feel.

Are all jobs at least as demeaning as they are rewarding? Is it inevitable to find a majority of people willing to tell you you've not spent enough time? Is this the Truth of working? The futility, the grasps towards meaning, the anger at not enough of you being used, for what you really have to offer? When I think about it, most of life seems thankless, and it's up to me to find meaning within all that, but how do people find enough within them to care and keep on trying despite all the failure and criticism, or even sometimes compliments that pass on by because I'm tired, trying to do so much on my own (I have CR and mom behind me, sometimes others, but rarely is anyone else here, involved, which is what ultimately makes it worthwhile), and sometimes even the compliments don't register as pleasure.

I mean, I'm not talking about anything difficult, I don't think. Most people need to feel needed, a part of things, helpful, at least not ignored, wasteful, ignorable, useless. Etc.

My tutoring student today, whom I so adore, told me not to "take it personally" after I told her I was having difficulties being criticized, then went briefly over her reading/writing with her. As she walked out the door: "don't take it personally." If I were to take it impersonally, what would that look like? I mean, how would I mark the line between my contribution and theirs? How would I know if I were failing (or succeeding) if everything were to be impersonal?

I realized the other day during Artwalk, when nobody showed up except the woman who co-runs the gallery next door: meeting people happens bit by bit, and sometimes you're in the middle of feeling sorry for yourself about the past, but there in your present are the beginnings. I always feel like that here, like maybe things are about to change. Damn the cycle though, damn it for making it hard to feel anything that might be here. All I had to talk about with that women who stopped by was how both of us were trying to work with, and make, and understand, what might be here. And in the midst: I like her. So does that count towards making connections? Or is that chatting with someone in the hall?

I went out to a gathering/hoedown/bonfire/barn-concert last night. Saw the Sheila (ex-employer a la sculptor woman) and was a little weird. Flirted and skipped town like a true social fuck-up. But enjoyed myself and the trains and the rain over embers, and the long line-up of hippie food, including so much bread and hummus and line dancing you'd swear that patchouli and pot were the new underarm deodorants of humanity. Good times, and I'll refrain from making any overall commentary, other than to note that it took two glasses of red wine to get me feeling moderately comfortable in all that, even if I'm trying to be more tempered these days.