Used to, I could tell when I was getting sick because I'd wake up one morning and have a certain feeling. I wouldn't feel bad, necessarily, but there would be a certain heaviness lodged in the back of my nose and a certain yellow-orange glint to my vision. Not unlike coming into a dark air-conditioned room out of a bright sunny day. Just a little dejà vu to let me know that within the next twenty-four hours I would be in un état de crise.
Well, I have to admit that I'm a little unnerved, just because in the last year that peculiar feeling has changed. Now, for me, it's a sense of being underwater, or in a damp sauna. It feels like part of my entrails have melted, or maybe evaporated, and are seeping out of all my surface openings. I'm drowning in myself, at least partially because of all the stress and alone-time occasioned by the past month of trying to write final papers for my fall semester classes (while, during the last week at least) also teaching my new class and taking a new set of courses. Phew. I knew this second year would be a challenge, and it has been, as evidenced by my post record of blog posting. On Friday I finished a paper whose idea I liked very much, but which might have been a little shoddy in the execution. The crux was a comparison between and early 16th century fictional character -- La "lozana andaluza" -- the lucious and robust andalusian woman -- and the late 20th century chicana lesbian activist Gloria Anzaldúa. Get it? Andaluza/Anzaldúa. Of course, not the entire paper was based on confluence of name, but rather on the idea that a certain experience of exile and taboo sexuality -- coupled with a self-realization by a woman expert in both mythic and practical arts -- serves as literary allegory for certain kinds of social paradigm shifts. So ... we'll see if that holds water. I really don't often claim to know if it will. Some of the papers I have liked best have tanked with professors, whereas others that were extraordinarily half-assed have made the grade. That would be the case with the current paper (due Tuesday) for which I have read very little. It's taking a Peruvian novel and trying to see whether its probing of certain indigenous ideas (particularly the ayllu, or Andean economic arrangement based on kinship and reciprocity) parallels, at least in terms of reception as a moral tract, the Analects of Confucius and human harmony through reciprocity (ren). This is extremely far-fecthed, and I haven't really done the necessary homework, so I don't predict good results.
What can I say about the last several months of my life, about which I have not really blogged? Day-to-day. Living with Ellen is a wonderful, daily challenge, and a real chance to grow. (I know that sounds corny, but hey, I will try to limit marriage talk here to compensate). We went to Memphis for the first week of January and had a helluva good time, including a visit to Wild Bill's, the soul music club, on the last night and meeting my mom's new girlfriend Janice. We also saw my sister's new band Sibella, three rockin' chicks indeed! As far as August-November, I'm going to have to take that up in a future post, even though I realize I've written nothing about our trip to Honduras and El Salvador in August. Keep your ears to the ground, dear Reader(s)!
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