"It's the Taste of Summer, it's the Clarion Call..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Deux items:

1. Apparently while I was out my mama called and left a message with my roommate, to whit: "Tell her to make sure she eats something before her exam!" Oh Mama. Ilu so much. And I will have a bowl of soup, if Jitters is stocking anything that is not full of evil priony beefy goodness (contradiction in terms lol whut where).

2. There is a name for my particular suicidal tendencies! Specifically, death instinct, which is a theory developed by Freud that essentially says that people have a natural instinct to want to get away from the stress and craziness of life, they want to stop the demands that are made upon them (whether consciously or unconsciously, for both the demander and demandee -- good God, what linguistic constructs I am making up), they just want everything to go away and let them rest. Which is usually how I feel when I am experiencing suicidal ideation; that is, the strongest emotional I usually experience is being tired. I feel tired and like there's too much being asked that I just can't live up to or fulfill, and I want to die so that I can just be alone and be quiet.

So that was pretty cool, to learn that it's a legitimate psychological theory. Funny thing it was referenced by my Short Story professor in regards to Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, which is a work of PURE CRACK and apparently deeply symbolic and if I have to write an essay comparing it to Joseph Conrad's Secret Sharer and Poe's Cask of Amontillado and Fall of the House of Usher I will stab my eyes out with a red pen, but the point is I tend to take what that particular professor says with a saltshaker, so I am mildly amused that I got something really worthwhile from one of his lectures. Which is not to say that his lectures are bad, per se, just that I frequently either don't agree with him or don't agree with his method of presenting things. Either way, he is infinitely more competent than my Death and Dying professor, inasmuch as he actually knows what he is doing and actually teaches us something, which is more than can be said for her. Also her class makes me want to strangle myself with my laptop cord. It runs my soul through a paper shredder. Once my soul is properly transformed into thin strips of useless, the class takes it, dumps it into a vat of acetic acid, stirs it around for a while, treats it with carboxylic acid, contaminates it with EDCs, then mixes this solution with methane and lights a match to it. Then it spits on my grave. If both I and the professor are still alive by the end of the semester, it will be because I have showed admirable restraint and have confined my fury and frustration to capslocked rants in the margins of my note-taking, and not because she has done anything to deserve survival in regards to her class, which she DOES NOT TEACH.

...That was a pretty good rant y/n? I've never done that before. :D Mmm catharsis.

Comments

[snowyofthenight.livejournal.com]

That sucks that you hate your class! I hated my French class, but I've always hated French so I assumed that was just how life was meant to be. But then my don was like "Um, you're not in high school anymore. You're not supposed to hate your classes." And lo, I was stunned.

[saltroseortopaz.livejournal.com]

I never knew there was a word for that, & I am kind of grateful for finding out.

P.S ♥

[tomecatti.livejournal.com]

So, this really has very little to do with anything, but my Lit Theory professor once wrote "Ah, Bartleby!" on a paper of mine and I still have no idea why. And I haven't read the Scrivener yet. All I know is that it's about a guy named Bartleby who would prefer not to.

That is a very violent and angry class, it seems. I'm concerned you may be projecting a bit. And by concerned, I mean kind of impressed.

[josiana.livejournal.com]

Hm. It's kind of surprising to find out that there's a name for that. But I'm glad I know.

;_; I'm sorry your class is horrible.

[perculious.livejournal.com]

I freaking love Bartleby the Scrivener! Last year my lit teacher was prone to bursting out in "Oh, Bartleby! Oh, humanity!" for little to no reason.

[eremon-lass.livejournal.com]

That was actually a really fantastic rant - and your thoughts on your Death and Dying remind me of one of my theater history classes, which can be summed up in the following multiple choice question:

What is the best part of Professor Wilk's ThA 401 class?
A. Finishing entire books of Sudoku in class.
B. Listening to him bastardize the themes of every Greek Tragedy we read.
C. Knitting enough gloves for everyone in Russia while texting your friends right across the room and playing Neopets all simultaineously.
D. Leaving.

And the death instinct theory is kind of fascinating and I may file that away as somthing to look into in more depth later.

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

... i've always wanted to see someone pick up bartleby the scrivener at df.

[reconditarmonia.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha Bartleby.

"I would prefer not to" was the standard response to our teacher assigning things for about a month after we read that.