subliminalia

12.02.2004

Question: What does it take to have a mid-life crises? How do you know that you're suffering from that depression when you have no idea of the Grim Reaper's personal schedule with you?

I am a 20 year-old college instructor. The shock in this news doesn't root from my being 20. It comes from the fact that I teach college students--some of whom are waaay older than me. (I feel so yooung!) I have a student who used to be my classmate, but got pregnant so she dropped school. Another student should have graduated 10 years ago--you do the math.

I love my job, though a lot of my college batchmates were quite disappointed of it. I was never the teacher-type when we were in college. I would usually sit infront of the class so that I could annoy the teachers to the maximum. I would ask irrevelant questions (that sounded otherwise!) so as to delay the occurrence of a quiz. I would write about my Dean using the most promising words in the University publication, and the next thing I know, she has my face attached to a voodoo doll! I would talk to the most dreaded officer of the University as if I was just talking to my Math professor (and I am so bald-faced in admitting that I hate Math). But, don't let this attitude mislead you. I did quite well in class. I was not the geeky-type, nor the grade-hungry, scholarly one. I just enjoyed being a sinister college student.

Which leads me to this introspection: Am i getting karma? I had a student who did a hand stand at the back of the classroom while I was discussing in front. And one time, my freshmen criminology students did not attend a session in unison--and I had to walk out of the room thrice! However, some of the pitfalls of my age (in relevance to my profession) are really miniscule. Some of my students forget that I am their teacher and that I am superordinate to them--there was even this one student who kept on pinching me everytime he sees me in the school corridors! But don't get me wrong...I am not your typical college teacher. I allow piercings inside the class--bald heads, short skirts, drunken students and unmarried pregnant students are welcome in my class. I even have sit-in's. I believe in non-conventions, and some, if not at all, are some school policies that are irrelevant to the students' learning methodologies. If I catch students eating in my class, I confiscate some of the edibles--and eat it myself! I am close to my students, but not necessarily open to them. Well, atleast they don't know my friendster account, yet.

So,with my professional and almost flawless nicotine intakes and superceeding caffeine overdoses, can I consider this derelict my MID-LIFE CRISES then? IF I will have cancer and I'm about to die at the age of 20, can I say that my mid-life crises happened when I was 10 years old? If I still can't, what qualifies then? I can't think of any--and the only possibility that I'm going to have one is if I marry a womanizer.

Which I am not.

*****

Note: The writer is just worried that she might not be living a normal life.Currently, she is in constant attempts to make her life possibly "livable"--or anything that could pass for "normal" in human terms. She is even creating her own problems at the moment. )