This week there is a major national conference on campus, sponsored by the academic department in which I reside (in theory). However, either I missed the announcements or didn’t understand them earlier this academic year. So, while other graduate students and instructors are meeting administrators from across the nation, I…
Tag: isolation
Whether I consider my oddities “autistic” or “birth trauma” (I vote for “complex entry into life”), I am certainly not normal. My wife will attest to this. Parents of special education students ask if I would want to be “cured” of my oddities. This question is one with which I…
I came to the University of Minnesota’s Department of Rhetoric thanks to a DOVE (Diversity of Views and Experiences) Fellowship. My wife and I relocated from California because we had the impression the department and university would be inviting, supportive, and, most of all, a place where I would not…
Not even two months into the year and I am exhausted. I’m possibly the most exhausted I have been since moving to Minnesota. It is the mix of university nonsense, cold weather, aching body, renovation disorder, and so forth. When one of our “kids” became ill Monday night, it was…
Even as an adult in my mid-30s, I am struggling as a graduate student. I can do the work, I can read the texts, but I am struggling. What is the issue? Probably the most important of all: In eight months I have yet to form a single personal connection within…