The song remains the same

I am amused. Saddened, but amused. I got an e-mail from Dr. M today, sent 24 hours before grades were due in, stating (in rather haughty tones) that my project had been in far too late to be graded and that I should consider myself lucky to have gotten the grade I did.

Right.

I haven't looked at my other grades yet. I probably should, but I don't want to deal with it right now. I may have to challenge up to two grades, and inquire into the causes of two more.

Why don't I want to do that? Because I have come to believe that as a woman, I must tread very, very lightly when I express a viewpoint or quarrel with an existing one. So I can't be too nice, or I'll get walked on, but I can't be too assertive, or I'll get smacked down. My experience with Dr. Ln taught me that much: my archnem was able to get away with complete irreverence, while I struggled to avoid punishment for pointing out the occasional error.

It's always interesting to note the differences in how people treat the archnem and me. Some, unfairly, dote on me while disdaining him (or giving him all the respect they normally reserve for five-year-old children) because they place a high value on apparent maturity and/or expect more of it from intelligent people. Others do exactly the opposite, generally because he's more normal - some times in terms of seeking others' approval and sharing socially acceptable priorities, such as beauty and sex; other times in terms of his background and the physical realities of his life. After all, he's a skinny, wimpy male nerd - what could be more normal than that? A chunky girl (who can incidentally lift upwards of 200 lbs.) isn't even in the running.

I wonder, occasionally, how much of his image is genuine and how much is cultivated. If I'd known when I was, say, twelve, what I know now, I would certainly have feigned concern with beauty and sex simply to make the beautiful and the sexual leave me alone. (Humans in general are far less in-your-face when they think they don't have to convert you.)

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Life with my family has been interesting. I'm very proud to have survived thus far, though I probably wouldn't have lived through the packing-and-driving-home portion if it weren't for E. He helped me do everything from reconstruct boxes to clean out my drawers, and then he drove me home afterwards.

But even beyond the concrete help, his presence kept me from disintegrating under my mother's continued grumping. Granted, it also afforded her the opportunity to do a couple of cheeky things she wouldn't have been able to do otherwise (I wanted to kill her when she started eating his food), but overall I owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

I just hope I can reach him at some point so that I can actually thank him.

Since returning to Kokomo, I've spent most of my time playing various and sundry computer games, but I did visit a few used car lots and pick up some shoes at Sears. The shoe run was fruitful; I now have two pairs of comfortable sandals, one pair of comfortable pseudo-moccasins and an additional pair of comfortable fancy shoes. One pair of sandals and the pseudos are good enough to perform elaborate physical activities in; the other two pairs are still good enough for everyday use.

Hopefully this will be the end of the coterie of shoes that has followed me around for the past two years of my life.

I wish I could say the same for the Rav 4. My mother seems to have developed this eerie fixation with those - I went to the Ford lot under the expectation that I would be looking at Camrys or possibly Corollas, and she insisted on knowing what color Rav 4 I liked. Her explanation for this seems to shift around when I poke at it; she said that she thought it was safer, but when I asked about it specifically she admitted that she liked the idea of my being able to haul all my belongings around in it. Then she unadmitted it. Then she readmitted it, sort of. I'm still not sure how all of this plays into her idea about getting the vehicle before I leave and using it over the summer while I'm away; the cynic in me says this is her real motivation, but I don't think it's feasible to manage this feat any more, so that seems improbable at best.

I hope.

Tomorrow we go down to the Enterprise used car lot in Indy. It will be an interesting experience. I'm just glad I'm not going to have to look for shoes while I'm down there as well; there's only so much shopping I can take...