Constant thought

My mom apparently has degenerative discs in her spine. Last week she could barely move. She blames it on trying to push up on her car window which won't stay up more. I don't know. It just constantly has me worried. I keep thinking I'm gonna have to drop out of grad school to go get an ACTUAL job and help bring in some money. I could maybe get into an Engineering job, but frankly the thought of it scares me more than anything. It became a field I wanted no part in. But of course there is money in it. I don't need a lot of money, but my family does. Medical bills, student loans, aging cars with something wrong always popping up. Bills. My mom wants to go to Pima next year, but how can she go to classes if she can't move around to work?

Well, freedom was fun while it lasted. Off to repeat the cycle. My mom had to go home and take care of my nana when she was like my age. Time weaves a tangled web that repeats itself. I wonder if I can take a leave of absence from the grad program. I am determined to get my Master's, and while all I need is one measly Engineering class for the Master's, I'm almost done with all the required coursework and would then only have research to do. I don't know.

I got to help out with a workshop encouraging minority students to do well in calculus. We introduced them to the first unit's worth of material and then let them see a testing rubric on how to get partial credit on stuff. I think it's a good idea but it needs to be more individualistic. They said they would like to have "lectures" on the material. We mostly focused on helping them work on worksheets and working in groups to figure things out. I liked it. I like teaching, although I don't think I'm very good at it. They say the best thing is to do what you love. I wonder if I can switch to math Ed, or maybe even just have a math ed focus if that's even possible. Kemosabe. I miss video games.

I was conceived when my dad was 23 and like a week. I am almost 25 and still a virgin. I'm drunk and lonely right now. This isn't working.

Somewhere, a kid just heard gunfire break the still of night. He knows it won't be the last time.

Quotas

It's one of those questions that I think that will bug me for the rest of my life. I don't think there's any real way of ever getting a definitive answer. It's times like these when I'm contemplating dropping out after I get my Master's that it pops up. Sure, it subsides, but like a cancer it always has a chance to come back:

Did I get into MIT because I'm Hispanic?

I recall when I went there as a pre-frosh (see my blogs from April of '05 for the saga). God, "pre-frosh" is such a white term. As I remember walking down aisles, meeting with students, attending classes on contour integration and economics, it never really struck me how few Hispanics I saw there. As each day passed and I realized that Cambridge life wouldn't be for me (no matter how badly I wanted to fight it) I only managed to find one spot on campus where I could feel at least a little comfortable: Anna's Taqueria. It's a Mexican restaurant in the student union, and it was easily the spot I most frequented. Not just because they had bottles of Jarritos and quesadillas and Juanes on the radio, it was the only place I distinctly heard people speak in Spanish. Is there a strong Hispanic representation at MIT and other Ivy League schools? I'm sure there is, but the problem was I still wouldn't have fit in with them. I'm too American to be Hispanic, too Hispanic to be American. It's a non-dense fractal in the intersection of two worlds.


I am reminded of a Myspace blog I wrote four years ago. If it weren't so late I'd go and look it up. Anyway, it was about this word "nepantla" meaning a sort of middle ground between dreams and reality, neither fully in one nor in the other. For a while I like to think I've been in this fog without differentiation, but more often than not it seems like I'm merely observing, watching both worlds fluorish and collapse. I'd like to live in one of those, I think, but do I have to choose only one? It seems like the answer is yes, or else I can stay here in neutral land.

But seriously, quotas suck. While it enables more people to work or study in a particular place, there is always gonna be some lingering doubt about whether we truly deserved to be here. It's like a voodoo curse, either intentional or not, and then the other non-minority people who otherwise would have gotten in go and whine about it. Sadly, it's lose-lose.

Sometimes I want to go to Boston and Cambridge just to see if things have changed. But it seems like if I wanted to do that, I'd have to become one of them. I've gotten a lot of perks from being Hispanic. Often I don't think I deserved them. It's only made me feel worse about myself. I can't help but think maybe I'm still in this graduate program, I'm getting this award, I'm getting this grade JUST because I'm Hispanic. Am I around to make their statistics look better? I never signed up for this.

My mom asked me what I want to do for my birthday. I just wanna run.

I'm already going gray. I'm pretty sure it's a manifestation of the fog I feel I am constantly in. Today has been a weird day. A friend of mine passed his Master's Thesis defense. I was there to watch, and it got me thinking: I am so lost. There's a big part of me that wants to leave the U after I get my Master's, maybe find a teaching job somewhere rural, maybe apply for some defense or government job at a national lab. I don't know. I don't know anything. It doesn't help that I'm writing this at 5 in the morning without having slept at all. I'm losing my friends and I suck at making new ones. I couldn't walk up to a girl if my life depended on it (death is always an option). My family needs a more reliable stream of money than 0.5 FTE graduate teaching assistant. I turn 25 in a month and I feel rather hopeless. I was having a serious breakdown today when I went to the mall to get some clothes from Penney's. I walked down each wing, trying to remember where stores used to be. The Luby's Cafeteria where we often would go eat was now half a Hollister and an empty building. Where the Macy's used to be they made it a new entrance which leads right towards the Cheesecake Factory. If it weren't for the old elevator, I might not have recognized Tucson Mall at all. I remembered the Sears; I bought my first Walkman there in sixth grade. The Suncoast had becomes a Gamestop but then it moved and now there's a Crocs store there. I remembered the Mrs. Fields cookies. I miss the big fountain. I miss the silly teapot. I miss the merry go round. I miss Luby's. I miss my Nana. I seriously thought I was gonna start crying riding up alone on the elevator. There used to be a Software Etc. where the Sephora is now. This wasn't my mall anymore. This isn't my Tucson anymore. I walked out onto the fifth floor balcony/roof at the building on campus where my friend gave his thesis presentation. Everything was still in the same place, but it didn't feel the same. I felt like a foreigner in places I know well. Sunrise is in about a half hour. One time I drive up to Ina and Campbell to see it. There they have all the fancy shops and stores. And the mountains were blocking the sunrise. I'm no rich man, nor do I ever wish to be. I know shouting a bunch of things isn't gonna help any but here we go. I'm gay. I'm straight. I'm lost. I'm selfish. I'm happy. I can't lie for beans. I've been living by myself for the first time ever for only a month and I hate it. I have too much crap. I need to go plant fake flowers in the ground 100 miles away. I don't want to go to Vegas. I didn't go to church last Sunday. They're changing the words there, too.

You're not supposed to have an existential meltdown at the mall.