It's Been a Minute!
My bad; the depression got me, lol.
Life, School, and Career Updates
School
Well, the semester is over and I’ve survived my 13th year of college/my 9th year of grad school. This semester was a lot of ups and downs. I feel like I accomplished a lot and solidified some academic interests, and yet, I feel like I also succumbed to pitfalls and performed worse than I know I am able. Hard to explain, but I’ll try:
This semester, I took 400-level classes, which count for me as a grad student, but are, essentially, high-level undergrad classes. I took Sociolinguistics, Semantics, and Philosophy of Logic and Language. The first two classes were in linguistics and I did well enough, but, for some reason I back-burner’d them. I understood all of the concepts and I can easily convey and articulate everything in these courses, but, as my advisor pointed out (he taught the semantics course), despite my base understanding, I jumped across things teleologically, instead of step-by-step. What I mean is that despite my understanding of A and Z, I wasn’t acknowledging B-Y and by skipping over those points, my understanding of Z was sometimes flawed or misinformed/misled. If you’re one of my former profs/teachers or my mom, that’s no shocker.
Honestly, I’m still really trying to figure out how to be a student, and especially a student with ADHD and other disabilities. Yeah, I made it through a LOT of school, but I was struggling, coping, faking my way through it all. I didn’t get my diagnosis until 2022 and even now, I still don’t know how to take notes properly or how to study. I didn’t learn these things as a kid because I was the ‘gifted’ kid who didn’t need help or attention. Some teachers told my parents or others I never did homework, but then I would ace the tests and everyone would decide it didn’t matter.
Here’s a story: One teacher, Mrs. Borns, whom I HATED with every fiber of my being, clearly saw through that. In retrospect, I regret how I mocked her for it. I loved her as a computer programming teacher, but despised her as a math teacher. Turns out, she just recognized I was skating by. Instead, 6 of us, with parents, petitioned the high school to implement an alternative AP course in statistics on the grounds that we shouldn’t have the same math teacher for 4 years in a row. On one hand, I agree: It was a small school, but there were multiple math teachers. No teacher should be responsible for the ENTIRE advanced/honors/AP track. There SHOULD be alternative AP classes, not just a single Calculus course. But also: We were mean. We involved our parents; not because of the subject, but because of the personnel. Sarah Borns was not a bad person, but I didn’t respect her. I did discover my love of stats and I recognized a newfound appreciation of my dean (who taught the new stats course), whom I thought was only a disciplinarian and an athletics administrator, but none of that should have been at the expense of Mrs. Borns.
That’s a digression, but I think it shows how, sometimes, my sense of justice or my self-advocacy can be used as barrier to introspection. I pride myself on self-implication, on examination of the self. It’s a major part of my poetry and I pride myself on being able to admit, in several places, that I am not innocent or the hero or necessarily good. However, I think I also have to admit that my openness in SOME aspects of my life do not translate to OTHER aspects of my life. This is the first time I am telling anyone that I think I was cruel to Mrs. Borns. In the same way, I should have done better for my professors this semester.
What I mean is, in a perfect world, you could open up my brain and see that I learned and synthesized the material of a course. But you can’t. And instead, I didn’t, as an academic colleague, act respectfully enough in these courses to do the work of showing that their instruction was working, that it was adequately informative. Instead, I let our rapport speak to it. I allowed oblique discussion hint that I processed readings, studies, handouts, homeworks. I skipped the work of it all.
I’ve gotten away with that a lot, and this is the first time I’m admitting it. I don’t mean to type this as some kind of ex-catholic confession in order to be magically absolved. In fact, according to catholicism, there’s a requirement of sincere contrition and adequate repentance anyway. Catholicism aside, the visceral guilt compels me. Mea Culpa. I do, actually, want to do better, to be better. I have a year left at MSU and I want to form better habits. I’ve established medical care for proper ADHD meds very recently, which is a major component of my hopeful success, but it’s not all on meds, it’s also on my habits and my behaviors. I’ve let a lot slide. I’ve allowed a lot of ‘recovery’ days for no reason.
I don’t really need someone to keep me accountable (I literally have an certified public account named MOM to do so), but feel free to text me randomly and ask if I’m being responsible or not. ;P
As far as school stuff for this summer goes, I’ll be completing that Syntax deferred grade from the past Fall and I’ll probably unofficially audit the undergrad Syntax course this Fall for my own benefit. Not much to say on that front yet.
Life
I re-started therapy if you couldn’t tell already. I’m pretty sure everyone in my life is glad for that. I’ve been fluctuating between high highs and low lows, struggling with impostor syndrome, feelings of inadequacy and failure, etc, etc, etc.
Those of you who have known me for a long time or have read my poetry know that my first experience with therapy was actually gay conversion therapy, so I have inadvertently developed a lot of anti-therapy barriers. I intellectualize everything. I talk around issues effortlessly. I make systemic connections in conversation instead of personal ones. I attempt to fix/help every problem my friends have instead of just actively listening and empathizing (Sorry Ryan).
My therapist is 3 years younger than me and she’s got me in a chokehold, lol. It’s been 8 years since I’ve been in therapy, and she’s already [emotionally] sniping me from the shadows. There’s a reason why this dispatch is both wildly personal and super long.
Again, if you know my writing, you know my driving ethos is radical honesty and self-implication. That’s why this newsletter is taking on this form this time. Maybe it’s catharsis, maybe it’s catholic guilt, but it doesn’t matter because those are just twee analogies I’ve used as a shield to avoid a deeper honesty with myself. What I mean by that is that I can cite traumas and studies and experiences all day long to explain my feelings and behaviors and boundaries. None of what I say is a lie. Nothing I say is malicious or deceitful. However, nothing I say will allow you to interrogate those borders. I have so expertly regulated my life, my feelings, my reactions, that I have cut off all notions of reaching out to people I love. All I want to do is help and fix others. I don’t want to be fixed. I’m sorry to you about that. I’ll try to be better (text me?).
I recognized that I was going through some MAJOR depression related to all of this in March/April, but I just couldn’t process it at the time. I had too many obligations. The truth is, I’m not doing so well. I’m worried I’m a hack poet and that despite my manuscript being a finalist for so many prizes, it just won’t ever be good enough to be published. I was rejected to all the colleges I cared about in undergrad and my first MFA round and almost every school for the PhD rounds entering 2018 and 2022, and 2023. I understand rejection, but I’m terrified it’s going to extend to the next round entering 2025, especially since I think I want to do philosophy of language, not linguistics.
I KNOW this is garbage. I know it’s not true. I have a great CV and I have good mentors who have referred me. But I don’t know how to stop the ghosts. All I can think of are my faults. All I can think of are the stories of the genius kids who become dependent on their parents and get forced into mindless jobs. Should I have just gotten an English job instead of this? Did I waste a year and so much time moving? Is there any benefit to what I’m doing?
It would be easy to compartmentalize a lot of this, and I do. Publishing rejection does not equal romantic rejection does not equal academic rejection does not equal friendship rejection. However, certain things build up on each other. It’s not the rejection so much as the aura of being not good enough. My book isn’t good enough. The neighbor who I wanted to date ghosted me. I didn’t get into the programs I wanted to. AWP rejected my proposals. Presses rejected my inquiries. etc. etc. etc. It just builds up. I thought I was stronger than it all, and I am if we look at it individually, but I forgot it all stacks up. I forgot the weight builds up.
At the end of the day, I haven’t been doing well, and, true to my avoidant behavior, I’m only telling you know that I’ve struggled through the worst of it. I hid it from you because I thought I didn’t want to worry you. that was a lie. I was scared to admit anything which would alter my persona of self-assuredness. I can’t be your pillar of support if I can’t even do my own dishes. I can’t give you relationship advice if I can’t take out my trash. I can’t cut your book-launch cake if I can’t clean my own fridge. I haven’t been doing well for a long time. I’m sorry for hiding it.
Career
It’s weird to write a career update after dumping in the previous sections, haha. This will be short. Everything I’ve ever cared about from an academic perspective can, of course, be reduced to a philosophical school or perspective.
After so many years, I’m realizing that my passion is actually in philosophy. Everything I love intersects in some way. Instead of applying exclusively to linguistics PhD programs this fall, I’ll be applying to Philosophy of Language programs. My top two schools are U of Chicago and U of Michigan. Rutgers is in that top tier as well, but the geographic proximity of Michigan and Chicago are very important to me. Additionally, I’ll be applying to integrated humanities programs like the CISAH program I’m teaching in this summer at MSU. I have always been interested in inter-/trans-disciplinarian programs in undergraduate colleges and I’ve always believed that they’ve been the ideal venue for my diverse academic interests. I’m so glad I can teach in this department this summer and I hope I can continue to teach in it in the future.
Joys Unlimited
Look, this newsletter was a depressing reckoning, I know it. I’m really sorry, but I needed to do it. That said, life has not been without its joys and to deny joy, to deny the trees, or “to make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.” So allow me to share some joys. Allow me to save you if I can:
The Judgies Podcast: one of my favorite silly reddit-story podcasts. I’m interviewing one host for the summer course I’m teaching.
Normal Gossip Podcast: probably the best low-stakes podcast in the world. Start listening now.
Chappel Roan’s entire discography: think sapphic-love rock/popstar plus genius?
Laufey’s entire discography: bossa nova plus depressed bedroom pop. lol me. (But seriously, amazing jazz pop.)
Hades II: follow-up to one of the best/most successful narrative roguelike games ever. I would love to be hired by them for narrative design.
Balatro: a wildly successful poker roguelite game. Super innovative fun.
Extremely Online: one of the main texts I’m requiring for the summer class I’m teaching. Approachable and fascinating.
So, my beloveds,
Thanks for reading this far; I love you,
—Teo