my excuses of being a grad student

We start today, with a photograph of a green leaf (and yes the photo is by me!), because of what Kim said of our students. They are eighteen! And they are our future! (Ah...yes, the children are our future, but sadly, they don't really know anything.....)

And the short talk with Kim & Park (Hmm...you guys have Korean last names as your first names...) & Steph made me think about how I came to terms with my not-so-active life as a grad student and a junior scholar.

This wasn't always the life I dreamed of, and although I am happy with what I am right now, sometimes I wonder what life would have been like, if I had taken another path. When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to become a magazine editor. Then, I pondered on going to art school, and on taking on photography not as a dabbler but a professional. I was not brave enough to alter the direction in my life so drastically, and I didn't dislike the things I was doing in Eng. department of my good old Yonsei-- so yes. I just sucked it up, and studied like a mad person. But still I wonder. And especially after having read Roy and Shiva, I wonder. What can I do, as a person so deep into the world of literature and theory, for the world? (Oh, what a grand notion...but still, it'd be good to contribute, right?) For some time, I did feel bad. Although I whine about being poor and having no time, come on...this is a bourgeois life. Not everyone can afford to come to grad school. A lot of people start working at an early age because they need to support their parents/family. This is a blessed life, although I do admit that the school is treating us as a cheap labor force. And what can I, a bourgeois grad student without much money or time, do to change anything in the world? With my clumsy words, with my skeptical perspectives, and with my "alien" self? My conclusion for the time being, is that perhaps, by being an ENG 106 instructor, I can make tiny, teeeeny changes in the ways the young students look at the world. Not everyone will change. I know that. And I know that my comments are never going to drastically raise a radical out of the very conservative kids we teach at Purdue. But sometimes, something will just click. Like when I made them re-think the rhetoric of women's magazines. Like when I made them at least question the sexism in Harry Potter. (They did not agree with the writer, but at least they started to think about it..) Like when I made them start pondering on environmental issues, by introducing them the film No Impact Man. Very little changes, and not very spectacular, I admit. But hey, if these kids are our future, isn't it important to make them think? I don't care if they don't agree with my political agendas. I just want them to slowly grow out of their often passive or indifferent modes of thinking. I want them to think critically. And as boring as the curriculum for ENG 106 may be, I think, just by having them write so many papers, I might be able to nudge them and push them along.

Or, am I being too naive here?
But I like to keep my hopes up. Otherwise, my toil over their papers will be so meaningless.

2013. 2. 8