(no subject)
Oct. 8th, 2006 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyThanks, guys. Really, genuinely, thanks. :)
I've deleted the start of about five posts now; I decided to get rid of them because being ill makes me an ugly person. Both physically (oh god, mirrors, and hair loss, and weight gain, and the kind of gross pallor that's found under rocks) and mentally. It's turning me into a whiny pissy boring mess, and I hate that. Because I genuinely am happy most of the time, even when I'm hurting. Today's just a particularly bad day and I've been snapping at my family and whining at my friends and I have decided that the judicious use of sellotape is the way to go, although I'm not sure how that's going to work - taping of the mouth is not so effective when you're, y'know, typing.
I was actually sellotaped, once. I was in the smoking area at college and I decided to just continue with my conversation while someone ran round and round and round me, using an entire reel of sellotape on me, head to toe. It took a while to pull it off, and as it stretched it got thinner and thinner and more and more painful as they tugged and I was in absolute bloody hysterics. I was late to registration, actually, and when my teacher glared and asked why I was so late I just dumped this enormous ball of sellotape on his desk and grinned charmingly.
((My English teacher in college was one of my favourite people ever, and he was the only reason I used to consider maybe going into teaching someday. He lent me a video and a book of Raymond Carver short stories, and told me to keep writing when I decided to write slash - which he made me hand in - instead of doing a practice exam paper. And instead of a practice exam on our last lesson with him, he took us all up to the art block and let us play with clay, and when he was handing out the results in a tutor period, later, he just looked at the little smiley face with its stitched up eyes and mouth and handed it to me, said he didn't need to find the initials.
He made us write, one lesson, about whatever we wanted. And then he took our work and placed it in a shopping trolley and set fire to it. And he told us that it's not the words and the sentence structure that are important because those can always be recreated. It's the ideas behind the writing that are what matter. You'd think I'd be able to edit things a little better, after that.
He was one of the only people I have cried in front of - and I was far more stoic in college than I am now. I gave him a Quint Buchholz card when I left. And years down the line, when I was in uni and working in a second hand bookshop, I found a poetry sampler that had his work in. Poems about times in his life that he'd told us about in class.
...I really want to track him down, now, and speak to him. But I suspect that he wouldn't remember me, and I guess that doesn't matter, because I remember him.
Maybe I'll wait until I've made something of myself, so I can tell him he was an inspiration and have it mean as much as his ideas did to me.))
...huge tangent, but the point behind this post was to say thank you all for the comments on my last post. I really appreciate it so much. And I'm sorry if I whine, occasionally - just ignore it. I always regain my bounce sooner or later.
♥
I've deleted the start of about five posts now; I decided to get rid of them because being ill makes me an ugly person. Both physically (oh god, mirrors, and hair loss, and weight gain, and the kind of gross pallor that's found under rocks) and mentally. It's turning me into a whiny pissy boring mess, and I hate that. Because I genuinely am happy most of the time, even when I'm hurting. Today's just a particularly bad day and I've been snapping at my family and whining at my friends and I have decided that the judicious use of sellotape is the way to go, although I'm not sure how that's going to work - taping of the mouth is not so effective when you're, y'know, typing.
I was actually sellotaped, once. I was in the smoking area at college and I decided to just continue with my conversation while someone ran round and round and round me, using an entire reel of sellotape on me, head to toe. It took a while to pull it off, and as it stretched it got thinner and thinner and more and more painful as they tugged and I was in absolute bloody hysterics. I was late to registration, actually, and when my teacher glared and asked why I was so late I just dumped this enormous ball of sellotape on his desk and grinned charmingly.
((My English teacher in college was one of my favourite people ever, and he was the only reason I used to consider maybe going into teaching someday. He lent me a video and a book of Raymond Carver short stories, and told me to keep writing when I decided to write slash - which he made me hand in - instead of doing a practice exam paper. And instead of a practice exam on our last lesson with him, he took us all up to the art block and let us play with clay, and when he was handing out the results in a tutor period, later, he just looked at the little smiley face with its stitched up eyes and mouth and handed it to me, said he didn't need to find the initials.
He made us write, one lesson, about whatever we wanted. And then he took our work and placed it in a shopping trolley and set fire to it. And he told us that it's not the words and the sentence structure that are important because those can always be recreated. It's the ideas behind the writing that are what matter. You'd think I'd be able to edit things a little better, after that.
He was one of the only people I have cried in front of - and I was far more stoic in college than I am now. I gave him a Quint Buchholz card when I left. And years down the line, when I was in uni and working in a second hand bookshop, I found a poetry sampler that had his work in. Poems about times in his life that he'd told us about in class.
...I really want to track him down, now, and speak to him. But I suspect that he wouldn't remember me, and I guess that doesn't matter, because I remember him.
Maybe I'll wait until I've made something of myself, so I can tell him he was an inspiration and have it mean as much as his ideas did to me.))
...huge tangent, but the point behind this post was to say thank you all for the comments on my last post. I really appreciate it so much. And I'm sorry if I whine, occasionally - just ignore it. I always regain my bounce sooner or later.
♥
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 11:08 pm (UTC)Gods, what an absolutely awesome teacher!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 11:20 pm (UTC)He didn't even teach me, studying Lit and all, but I thought he was awesome.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-08 11:24 pm (UTC)Graeme. I remember him telling a story about how offended he was that his dad didn't know how to spell his name, once.
He was my tutor and insisted I should date John. :D
ALSO! Chris says we should descend en masse upon the Railway, soon. Dan and Dave and you and me and Chris and Pete and whoever else. Whaddaya reckon?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-09 05:10 pm (UTC)He was SO much better than the semi-evil Lit teachers at Symonds.
Aww, John! Are you still in touch with him? I wonder how he's doing. And Alex. Hee. I'll always remember him leaping over that fence in the rain and rolling down the hill, while we sat on the window ledge singing Korn.
That sounds like a WICKED idea to me. If Pete can drag himself away from decorating, DIY and fitting bathrooms! :-p Haven't been to the Railway in ages, and haven't seen Dave for a few years either for that matter! We should definitely sort something out :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-09 01:42 am (UTC)What a fantastic teacher. There's a teacher who meant something similar to me, and I've been meaning to track her down for years. As for yours? I promise you that hearing that would mean the world to him, now or later, because you are phenomenal, no matter what. :D