All-grad parties and ahimsa

Went out to an all-grad-school party on Friday, which turned into quite the fiasco. Apparently the place where the party was supposed to be held didn't have its liquor license. Grad students waiting in line for as long as an hour were absolutely miffed to learn, at the end of purported open bar time, that the place could not even serve liquor! Party was subsequently moved to alternate venue, which accepted our $10 tickets but did not offer the open bar for which we all believed to have paid. New venue was a club called Duvet; yes, a spinoff of Bed (see earlier entry on that bar), complete with beds instead of tables. Other gimmicks included a large aquarium filled with jellyfish, and one-way mirrors for doors in the unisex restroom, which was rather disconcerting if you happened to be peeing in a stall directly across from the people waiting in line.

I had gone to the party with a lecturer in the program where I work, and her friend who is a doctoral student in the program (also known as bitchy-copier-girl turned fighting-over-the-last-party-ticket-for-me girl). It was quite interesting. The lecturer (who is actually a year younger than I) and I watched people, because we are both a little bit more observers than extroverted party girls, while copier-girl chatted with a totally ridiculous French electrical engineer who made stereotypical comments about the prudishness of American women and narrated tales of Southern girls who had fallen in love with him but would not let him fondle their breasts yet. There were lots of nerdy guys there, and I probably made too many jokes about Asian med students. We danced for a while, but the music, which was just boring house, wouldn't change, so we left at about 1 a.m.

The entire Saturday was spent trying to read articles for classes. Sunday morning and early afternoon were spent in study group discussing said readings. These readings, by the way, are hardly ever discussed in class, so I don't know why I bother.

Tonight in class I felt incredibly frustrated by a classmate. Most of my classmates have been and were tonight frustrated by him as well. He is extremely self-centered, loves to hear himself talk, plays devil's advocate, and exhibits an amazing degree of closed-mindedness that seems inappropriate for someone aspiring to be a teacher. A few of us, including me, were very short with him, and in the end, we had pretty much ganged up on him. I felt guilty later, when my friend and classmate said she felt sorry for him being attacked so much; actually, he is probably where most of my education is going to take place over these two years, because I have to learn to empathize and have patience and help him see other points of view. I may have students just like him in the future! It is just so hard to remember that when he is stubbornly defending the virtues of rote memorization in the teaching of math and wondering out loud every five minutes why anyone should understand what they are doing when they add and subtract, because he didn't have to until he was ready in 12th grade to understand math, and he turned out to be successful (in his opinion).

When I practice yoga, I always do a little prayer at the end, in which I thank the universe for love, joy, health, and wealth, all of which I have in my life. I also thank the powers that be for patience and strength, because I do have some of that, but in hopes, too, that I will be able to find some more of those in myself. The hardest struggles I will have as a teacher will be those I have always faced throughout my life till now: the practice of non-violence (ahimsa) toward others (not judging so harshly) and toward myself (not being so hard on myself).