Christine Jorgensen’s Memoirs (1 of 4): Hospital Reading.

From Christine Jorgensen’s “Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography” (p. 127):

I’ve had some occasion to recall since that it was on exactly the tenth day in the hospital that I awoke to see the first snow of the year outside my window.  I can even remember the book I was reading that day.  It was “The Robe” by Lloyd C. Douglas.

. . .

Student Evals.

When I ran by some ideas for changes to my sex class with the art kids, their content comments boiled down to “Less religion, more trannies.”

And you know, they’re right! 

Next time around, I’m going to re-weight the material and de-emphasize some of the religion stuff, and emphasize stuff about the science of sex (with discussion focusing on moral claims, e.g. “We’re essentially bonobos”), transsexuality, and the history of gayness in the U.S.

Also, I had one student who gave negative comments on the online eval forms, including one of my all-time favorites: “Interesting material covered, but taught in an overwhelming, annoying, and neurotic fashion.”

I quoted that to my one (Mormon) colleague, and he just broke into a big smile and gave me a thumbs-up.

Unfortunately, in the online printout of the evals, that student’s comments are the very first in response to every question.  In one, she (I think I know who it is) said I was “controlling”, which I think is in reference to how I focused assignments and feedback on certain academic/analytical ways of writing, or maybe my flunking that one student; she had said in response to another question that I wasn’t open to other ways of doing things, and that I randomly failed someone “for no reason”. 

That one comment does bother me a bit, since it makes me come off as power-mad (and it is something that certainly sticks out at the top of a row of comments).

Treating Myself.

As soon as I finish my dissertation chapter, I’m getting myself Madonna’s 1^st and 2^nd CDs, as a reward.

Summer academic plans:

- Finish 3rd dissertation chapter.
- Turn a chapter that won't appear in my dissertation into 2 articles, and submit both for publication.
- Read a book and write a review, since a journal requested I review it (quick way to add a line to my CV!).
- Do more reading and begin 4th dissertation chapter.

This, of course, is in addition to continuing language tutoring (down to just 2 students), volunteering at a labor activism place (to hedge my bets with careers, since academic jobs have gone down the tubes), and maybe starting to learn Spanish - or, as I like to put it, "perfect" my Spanish.

Roaches.

After those 2 roach sightings - one on the edge of my sink; another behind the edge of my sink counter - and finding out from other tenants that roaches had started appearing after one apt. on my floor got renovated, I bought a pack of roach motels and set them all around my apartment.

Like 2 weeks after I did that, I came home at night, and there was a roach sitting out on the front of my stove.

I went to smack it, and it tried to scurry, but moved slowly.

Like 2 days after that, I came home at night, and there was a roach sitting out at the edge of the tile by the kitchen area in my studio.

I went to smack it, and it tried to scurry, but moved slowly.

Like a few weeks after that, I was raising the blinds in my dining room area around 8am, and I noticed a roach on the lower wall.

I went to smack it, and it tried to scurry, but moved slowly, though it did get on the floor before I smacked it.

I think the roaches are moving slowly since they all got some of the poisoned bait, and it had fucked with their nervous system or whatever it is that insects have.

Cage-free eggs.

The little corner store where I do all my shopping has started to carry cartons of cage-free large eggs, $2.99 a dozen.

That's three times as expensive as the $.99 medium eggs I was used to getting, but treating chickens better like that is worth that to me.

And, actually, the eggs are noticeably larger.  It only takes three of them to make my omelette I always eat on Sunday, not four.

Quilting.

Since my mom retired, she's been going to a quilt guild a lot, and right now one day a week they all make quilts to send to military families.

"That's nice," I was like, "Because soldiers don't get paid enough, and a lot have to go on food stamps and stuff.  But how about instead of a bandaid to make you and the guild feel better, how about you guys go out with petitions and fight for just laws, so they get treated better?"

At that, my mom was silent.

"Was that revolutionary enough for you?", I asked, laughing.  "Gotcha!".

Lately, she's been calling me her little revolutionary.