I almost threw my shoe at a woman today.
(And by “woman,” I strictly mean anatomically.)
But literally. My shoe was in my hand — not on my foot — and I pulled my arm back and began to throw it, only deciding at the last second that having to explain to future employers that the assault charge on my record was for beaming a colleague in the head with a loafer simply wouldn’t be worth the explanation.
The others in the room flinched, fearing that I was actually about to throw a shoe.
As a child, I always took my anger for my younger sister out on her by throwing things. I take full credit for her quick reflexes and our collective ability to reassemble remote controls, hair brushes, and Barbies.
We had a follow up meeting to last week’s meeting (See “Meet me at the flagpole. It’s going down.”), and after the official meeting, a few of us hung around to have a general chat — nothing secretive, just teaching logistics — and two of the anti-side came back in to further discuss things from the meeting.
I tried to leave because I knew it would not generate a fruitful discussion — which I said — but the guy took that as an opportunity to call me and “my survey” passive aggressive. After a long, drawn out explanation and back and forth as to the contents of the survey, I explained that there was absolutely no malicious intent in the creation of the survey, acknowledging that I did not like him (those exact words because I have the lady balls to tell someone how I feel) and that he did not like me, so I took that into account in the multiple drafts, approved by our advisor, so as to avoid any sort of situation where it could be construed as a personal attack as per his accusation that the survey was a passive aggressive attack to call him out.
I then pointed out that any inference of passive aggressive behavior is something that he needs to own in his victimized interpretation and not pass onto others.
It clearly spiraled from there when I nearly lost my shit.
There was also a statement he made somewhere in the hour long post-meeting meeting where he said he doesn’t believe the school should be relied on as a source of income. He sees being a GTA as a line on the CV. I see being a GTA as the beginning of my lifelong career in academics and first-year composition.
I wonder whose course evaluations are best.
(Hint: mine.)
— AM.
avamaura 