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fiat_knoxI had a dreadful dream this morning, which brought home how I felt last night.
I dreamt that I was attending a lecture by a visiting Professor. She was doing a tour, signing her latest book, her second, and I'd done everything in my power to petition the heads of the Faculty to invite the woman to guest lecture before her signing.
I was enjoying her lecture, and then suddenly she stopped and singled me out.
"I can't continue with this lecture," she said. "Please leave. Your staring is affecting my concentration."
As I left, I heard one of my friends stand up and defend me against what she described as a "starey - eyed monster." I heard him inform the Professor that I'd been responsible for bringing her here in the first place. Another student remarked how I'd left my copy of her book on the bench; that brought gasps of astonishment from the class, who were all well- aware of my bilbiophilic tendencies.
I've never thrown away a book in my life. Given away, yes. Accidentally lost. But never left behind like litter.
To help you understand how I felt at close of day yesterday, I'll have to take you back to the first time I tried to attend university.
Way back, in fact, to 1981.
I was reading for a BSc in Organic Chemistry back then. The University of Manchester were eager to have me on board, and the future kind of looked rosy.
From the outside, at least.
Truth was, I actually found that I hated it. The course was okay. It was the students. I'd put up with bullying and persecution all my life - my Counsellor recently diagnosed that persistent bullying when I was very young may have damaged the ability to form relationships that children learn, or at least prevented me from developing the ability beyond a rudimentary stage - and I found, very quickly, that they were here as well.
So I actually dropped out of this course.
The event that crowned it, the Rubicon that was crossed, came one week, during a practical chemistry session. We'd been assigned the task of extracting a chemical called phenetole - a process taking about two weeks. The procedure required that the substance be extracted, crystallised, weighed, then purified a couple of times to a requisite level of purity, then the final product weighed one last time and the whole thing written up in our lab books.
So we had a space, a tiny space on a workbench in one of the chem labs, and for two weeks I calmly went about my day, extracting this stuff, methodically purifying it and just getting along with the work.
There was a young student who shared the bench on my left. She was a pretty young Asian woman, and the whole time we barely exchanged one word.
At one crucial stage in the experiment, she stumbled, or something, and her hand flew wide.
And it knocked the beaker of phenetole straight into the sink and all over my bench.
In that one moment, the whole lab went silent and deathly still. Everyone was staring at us. I think she had her hand in her mouth, and she was staring at me.
And all I did was clean up the mess, methodically. I cleaned and packed away my things, taking all the usual precautions to clean up the breakages in the sink.
And then, I turned and walked away from the lab, and from the course.
I did not say a word. No anger. No grief. No emotion whatsoever. I didn't even look the girl in the eye.
From that moment, I did not say one bloody word. And I never went back to that lab again.
What I told nobody was that, the minute I got back to my digs, two hours early, I locked the door and bawled like a baby. There was nobody around. No-one knew. And not long afterwards, I had packed my bags and I was gone. No explanation given. But everyone knew.
My folks could never understand why, from that time, I was a changed man. I looked up Buddhism, found the virtues of non-attachment. I discovered Stoicism, with its similar beliefs and exercises. I got into computers, a love and a vocation which has never let me down. And most of all, I found Discordianism, and the virtue of not taking life so damned seriously.
It took me until 1995 to work up the courage to go and get a degree - this time, in Computer Studies - but I eventually did manage to land a good one.
But I never forgot the moment when that phenetole flew everywhere, when my world crashed, and the whole damned lab stood still.
Recently, as in early last year, I experienced a similar crash. I told nobody about this, but when it happened, I knew - my Proffwyd sixth sense kicking in, I guess - that a certain relationship I'd had with some people had come to an end. They were going to be polite, naturally, but I could sense a tacit pulling away.
And in recent days, I finally had confirmation.
So the other night, I bawled like a baby. But again, it was the severance before the closure.
I just wish there'd been someone earlier to say "Sorry. But thanks for everything," put a lid on it earlier. I've been carrying this burden of wanting closure for so bloody long. But now it's done, and that's that.
Thing is, there's something I never got to find out.
I never got to look at that Professor's face in my dream; never got to see what her expression was when she realised what she'd done. And this is the thing I really never got to know.
Does that girl still think of me? The one in the lab? The Asian woman who knocked over my stuff? Does it come back to haunt her in the quiet nights, that she did this thing, and she half expected to hear me chew her out ... only "And all he did was pack his stuff away and walk out of the lab, cold as ice, and I never heard one word out of him again, and OMG he dropped out because of me?!"
I've been called a monster all my life, by the most ignorant of people. And yet I am kind to one and all that I meet, no matter how they treat me.
Because if I behaved to them the way they behaved to me ... I would not be making these LJ posts today.
But what I did, back in that lab, walked away and never gave that woman any sense of forgiveness or Sweet Fanny Adams, no sense of closure whatsoever?
Now that was monstrous.
I dreamt that I was attending a lecture by a visiting Professor. She was doing a tour, signing her latest book, her second, and I'd done everything in my power to petition the heads of the Faculty to invite the woman to guest lecture before her signing.
I was enjoying her lecture, and then suddenly she stopped and singled me out.
"I can't continue with this lecture," she said. "Please leave. Your staring is affecting my concentration."
As I left, I heard one of my friends stand up and defend me against what she described as a "starey - eyed monster." I heard him inform the Professor that I'd been responsible for bringing her here in the first place. Another student remarked how I'd left my copy of her book on the bench; that brought gasps of astonishment from the class, who were all well- aware of my bilbiophilic tendencies.
I've never thrown away a book in my life. Given away, yes. Accidentally lost. But never left behind like litter.
To help you understand how I felt at close of day yesterday, I'll have to take you back to the first time I tried to attend university.
Way back, in fact, to 1981.
I was reading for a BSc in Organic Chemistry back then. The University of Manchester were eager to have me on board, and the future kind of looked rosy.
From the outside, at least.
Truth was, I actually found that I hated it. The course was okay. It was the students. I'd put up with bullying and persecution all my life - my Counsellor recently diagnosed that persistent bullying when I was very young may have damaged the ability to form relationships that children learn, or at least prevented me from developing the ability beyond a rudimentary stage - and I found, very quickly, that they were here as well.
So I actually dropped out of this course.
The event that crowned it, the Rubicon that was crossed, came one week, during a practical chemistry session. We'd been assigned the task of extracting a chemical called phenetole - a process taking about two weeks. The procedure required that the substance be extracted, crystallised, weighed, then purified a couple of times to a requisite level of purity, then the final product weighed one last time and the whole thing written up in our lab books.
So we had a space, a tiny space on a workbench in one of the chem labs, and for two weeks I calmly went about my day, extracting this stuff, methodically purifying it and just getting along with the work.
There was a young student who shared the bench on my left. She was a pretty young Asian woman, and the whole time we barely exchanged one word.
At one crucial stage in the experiment, she stumbled, or something, and her hand flew wide.
And it knocked the beaker of phenetole straight into the sink and all over my bench.
In that one moment, the whole lab went silent and deathly still. Everyone was staring at us. I think she had her hand in her mouth, and she was staring at me.
And all I did was clean up the mess, methodically. I cleaned and packed away my things, taking all the usual precautions to clean up the breakages in the sink.
And then, I turned and walked away from the lab, and from the course.
I did not say a word. No anger. No grief. No emotion whatsoever. I didn't even look the girl in the eye.
From that moment, I did not say one bloody word. And I never went back to that lab again.
What I told nobody was that, the minute I got back to my digs, two hours early, I locked the door and bawled like a baby. There was nobody around. No-one knew. And not long afterwards, I had packed my bags and I was gone. No explanation given. But everyone knew.
My folks could never understand why, from that time, I was a changed man. I looked up Buddhism, found the virtues of non-attachment. I discovered Stoicism, with its similar beliefs and exercises. I got into computers, a love and a vocation which has never let me down. And most of all, I found Discordianism, and the virtue of not taking life so damned seriously.
It took me until 1995 to work up the courage to go and get a degree - this time, in Computer Studies - but I eventually did manage to land a good one.
But I never forgot the moment when that phenetole flew everywhere, when my world crashed, and the whole damned lab stood still.
Recently, as in early last year, I experienced a similar crash. I told nobody about this, but when it happened, I knew - my Proffwyd sixth sense kicking in, I guess - that a certain relationship I'd had with some people had come to an end. They were going to be polite, naturally, but I could sense a tacit pulling away.
And in recent days, I finally had confirmation.
So the other night, I bawled like a baby. But again, it was the severance before the closure.
I just wish there'd been someone earlier to say "Sorry. But thanks for everything," put a lid on it earlier. I've been carrying this burden of wanting closure for so bloody long. But now it's done, and that's that.
Thing is, there's something I never got to find out.
I never got to look at that Professor's face in my dream; never got to see what her expression was when she realised what she'd done. And this is the thing I really never got to know.
Does that girl still think of me? The one in the lab? The Asian woman who knocked over my stuff? Does it come back to haunt her in the quiet nights, that she did this thing, and she half expected to hear me chew her out ... only "And all he did was pack his stuff away and walk out of the lab, cold as ice, and I never heard one word out of him again, and OMG he dropped out because of me?!"
I've been called a monster all my life, by the most ignorant of people. And yet I am kind to one and all that I meet, no matter how they treat me.
Because if I behaved to them the way they behaved to me ... I would not be making these LJ posts today.
But what I did, back in that lab, walked away and never gave that woman any sense of forgiveness or Sweet Fanny Adams, no sense of closure whatsoever?
Now that was monstrous.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-26 10:01 am (UTC)Just wanted to comment as... yep. Your post really made me think.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-26 10:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-26 11:08 am (UTC)Good to hear you managed to turn things around after the troubles you had in your first degree, that and managed to get that one in Computer Studies.
I get treated like a monster...
Date: 2009-03-26 01:15 pm (UTC)And for this, I've been called an abrasive monster and a pessimist.
You and I were meant to be friends from the get go. We monsters have to stick together or else to mobs with pitchforks and torches get us.
Obviously you were there for a reason...
Date: 2009-03-27 01:26 am (UTC)If that had not happened at that time you may have never met us. I for one am much better a person for your friendship...I think Nyghtshayde would agree.
I am going to venture an opinion... please take it as that. As for your dream.... and possibly the lesson you may need to work on. Is learning to speak up for yourself. Particularly if you need resolution or closure. Perhaps if you had asked if there was a problem with you recent association that went south. The other people involved could have let you know sooner. It might have resolved the situation sooner, or even changed the outcome.
Live and learn...Rimble Rimble