Office Hours

I might be a relatively useless TA; however, that doesn't mean that I am incapable of being useful. I've just managed to become assistant to the worst professor in the department, during a six-week summer course taken mainly by seniors one class shy of graduating or underclassmen looking for an easy way to fulfill their general education requirements. None of these students intend to major in linguistics, so relatively few of them are going to develop a passion for the subject, especially when the vehicle for the transmission of the concepts crashes and burns about once every fifteen minutes. I often glance toward the students, gazing up at his unnecessary powerpoint slides and attempting to decipher his rambling, cryptic speech, and think how much I would have hated to be in their positions. This class has taught me that the right professor (or the wrong one, for that matter) can mean the difference between developing a lifelong career interest in a subject and absolutely despising that subject and never wanting anything to do with it again. My professor made every subdiscipline interesting and tangible, and I have her to thank for my decision to major in Linguistics, though my fascination with language has been an element of my being for as far back as my mind allows me to reach. I'm sure that some of these students decided to take this class because language interests them, and the desire for new knowledge and patterns of conceptualization captured their attention. Taught by any other professor, this class would most likely have kindled that interest. Instead, it has been smothered, and the class and therefore the subject itself have become drab and laborious. They really need to do something about this man because I honestly believe that he is deterring a great number of students from entering/continuing the major.

I have a lot of other things on my mind, and I have another hour and a half before I can officially leave this makeshift office, created from a table, a laptop, and a rather comfy chair in the coffee lounge at the university library. I've been ridiculously ill for nearly 2 weeks, and each time I see signs of improvement and prepare myself for the excitment of living a healthy, normal life again, my expectations are annihilated, and I return to the abysmal state from which I had seemed to emerge. In addition to the physical distress brought about by this state of illness, a compounding factor exists in that I have not been able to go to the gym in a week. I'm anxious and disconnected. My body feels even worse because of it. It's ugly and circuitous, and it seems quite cruel. I've resolved to go to the gym tomorrow, even if I'm still feeling like shit because at least I'll feel better about myself.

Drumline camp is approaching in less than a month. I should be absolutely terrified, but I haven't reached that point yet, and I hope it never develops into anything more than a sleepless night the evening prior to my audition. In years past, I have been almost incapacitated by my anxiety--by my fear of failure or of my own reaction to it--and it has prevented me from realizing fully my potential as a snare drummer for 3 years now. Last summer, I received a crushing email from Brad while sitting in Posvar doing Calculus homework at 11pm. I immediately called my friend and "drumming mentor" Todd, a four-year veteran of snare drum who had just graduated from Pitt at the end of the spring semester. I was frantic, and I probably scared the shit out of him. But the next phone call I made was to Brad himself...at 11:30 that evening. I told him that my individual audition was not indicative of my playing ability in any way. I begged for another chance. I told him to watch my video. That's how the story of the 9th snare begins. But that story, at least the chapter that has recently ended, has a far from happy ending. That story started out just fine, but the protagonist was overcome with nerves and the burden of having to prove himself every single day while the others did not. He became doubly nervous, and though it was clear that his playing had improved dramatically, he just look too scared. He froze too much. It's all about the confidence--the Look. After the second camp, Will informed me that they were going to start pulling me out. They had waited to tell me my official status as alternate because they saw that I could play everything as well as everyone else. But I still seemed to be missing something. I don't hate them for that decision. It may have been a horrible experience that did nothing to help me improve my playing ability or the ability to block out the rest of the world and the rest of my brain, but it was a horrible experience within which, through obsessive rumination, I have been able to find the secret to success.
As unhappy as the situation made me last year, I developed some really close relationships during the season, and as distant as my physical separation from the line made me feel from my fellow drummers, I know that they were there for me and with me at all times. They did not choose the scenario. I made that decision, and when I tried to explain to Griffin that I would have chosen differently had I been aware of what it would really be like, he told me that knowing me, I would have made the same call. And he was right.
I learned a lot about the way I approach difficult, even seemingly impossible situations. And I've survived. I'm alive, and I'm somehow better off because of going through that shit, though that wasn't immediately apparent, even a few months ago. I'm realizing more and more just how okay I am with performing in front of people as the audition draws closer. The emphasis has shifted slightly: While I am still a performer, I am ultimately a learner. While a goal of mine is still to impress those guys sitting at the table in front of my drum a month from now, far greater goals have become apparent: further development of my musical abilities, the strengthening of current and the forging of new relationships with my percussion-oriented peers, and proving to myself and myself alone that I AM capable. Being scared just doesn't seem to factor into the equation anymore. I still feel the traces of that fear from time to time, when my hands start to shake a little, or when I stop for a second and try to find my place again, but the former is not nearly as inhibiting as it has been in years past, and the latter I can attribute to my unfamiliarity with the new music.
This year is going to be different for me. One of three things is going to happen. I will make snare outright, I will return to the cymbal line after a year of absence, or I will be sent home without a spot. I can safely say that the latter is highly unlikely because I was actually very good on the cymbal line. I would never turn my back on this drumline. Not making the snare line is not going to make me quit. That would be selfish and stupid, and the biggest source of failure for a group of talented musicians is selfishness. A drumline especially requires self-sacrifice and the ability to lose oneself in the larger group. The goal is not to stand out but to blend in--the formation of a single sound, a single drummer from many. No matter where I am in the line, I know I can contribute. I now know that there is a whole lot more to this than I had in mind my freshman year. This isn't to say that I won't be upset if I don't make the snare line. I've worked my ass off, and it means that much to me that I'd be severely disappointed by such an outcome. But it will not kill me. It will not devastate me and demolish my confidence as it has done. I know what's important now. The story may not take the turns I had originally expected, but that doesn't mean that I have to close the book.

Drumline and Crew have been outstanding microcosms for me. I'm trying to deal with the way my brain runs away in other situations, and I think a large part of the answer lies in channeling whatever it is that keeps me going when I play on the spot now. The musical part of my brain has been restored to its original glory, for when I was younger, drumming became my world of escape, a refuge from the rest of life. Somehow the stablity of that world floundered as I grew older, and it has taken me so long to completely grow back into that state of security. Now that I have renewed this place of sanctuary in my head, I hope that I can find a way to open it to the rest of my cognitive abilities. I don't know how the hell this is going to happen, but I know I've got an army of people behind me to help me figure this out.

My head is spinning from this right now. The words are pretty hard to read. I've had a lot of that going on lately, and it either means that my sinus infection is so bad that the pressure is messing with my vision or that I have a ridiculous tumor that's eating away at my brain. If the latter is the case, I hope it gets indigestion. Shit, no. I don't want cancer to puke on my face. Yes, I clearly have brain issues, even if they have nothing to do with cancer.

Another forty minutes or so...What else do I have floating around in this sea of mucus and white blood cells?

"So how are you doing with that whole gay thing?"She asked me this as I leaned against the wall adjacent my bed, and I really didnt't know how to answer it at first. Part of me found it redundant. If I had not been okay with things, I would have broken up with her and cried about how pathetic Iam or something. I guess it really is that simple for me, in a completely logical sense. My brain sees no difference between how one should treat sexuality and how one should treat eye color. These things just ARE. But there's a great disparity between that part of my brain and the parts that have to keep me alive in this society. I have to hide it. Maybe I don't have to hide it so much now, but I'm eventually going to have to lie big time. And this scares the shit out of me. I don't know when it's okay to be okay about it. I don't know when it's safe. I guess my bigger problem is getting the rest of the world to see me as exactly the same person I used to be. I haven't really changed that much, and I would hate for people to think that I'm somehow completely different now that I have a girlfriend.

I've also been thinking about my brother a lot, and I really need to get a letter out to him soon. I spent a little time talking to my mom about this over the phone before my body decided to surrender. I envy all those whose siblings can visit them at college and give them advice. I envy all those families who can sit down together for a holiday meal and even those who can sit down together in their pajamas around a pizza box in the middle of the floor while watching a movie. I miss all of these things. For a while, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that my brother would be released at his minimum, but the reality of that situation became less and less obvious as I learned more about the way our prison system operates. It'll be at least a year or two before they'll consider it. My brother has never seen Pittsburgh. He's never seen me perform at Heinz Field. He never saw me graduate from high school. He's not going to see me graduate from college. If he goes to his maximum, he will never see me graduate from medical school. Given that his maximum is nine years from now, he'd probably miss out on quite a bit in my life. I've had to handle this for so long that it has stopped affecting me in the way that it used to. I'm still deeply upset about the situation, but my mind has coped with what has happened, and it has blocked the path from memory to emotion with an infinite wall of mental cement. I could go on and on about this, but that's not going to be very productive. I just want him back.