(no subject)

All my whingeing yesterday and my determined almost-non-whingeing the day before turned out to have the same cause. It was precisely the same cause, too, as the glorious typos and the lack of time sense. I have a low scale, long-lasting migraine. Enough to make me jump at sounds and feel grotty, but not quite enough to notice. I finally checked migraine symptoms just before bed, said "oops" and wondered why I hadn't noticed. It's years since I had those week-long migraines, however, and they do start with this feeling of the world being askew.

Given that I have more PMT and other interesting symptoms alongside the migraine, I'm going to hazard a guess that this is a major hormonal shift and that one day menopause will come. One day fairly soon, if 31 days of PMT with only one day of relief is any indication.

My next question is if I can meet my own migraine record, or if I even want to bother. The longest migraine I have ever endured lasted for nine days, and the symptoms were significantly worse than this. I think I shall not bother.

I need to raise my core body temperature and keep it raised. For this I need caffeine (in various forms), a hot bath, to lounge round in my down dressing gown and to do much gentle exercise. This, then is my morning's program. If my eyes behave (and the time I noted that my eyes weren't quite behaving was probably when the migraine actually began) then I can work while doing all this (well, maybe not during the hot bath).

I like some things about getting older. Hormonal shifts is not one of them.

(no subject)

I've had a morning's rest and my migraine has abated a bit. Not enough to do eye-intensive work, but certainly enough to think. Something got me to thinking about people.

Several times now, I've been asked to teach people (some teens, some adults) who apparently wear "I'm dangerous" signs. One had been institutionalised for some fairly nasty things, but was in the community (for treatment was working) - I was given such big warnings about him!

In each case, I enjoyed the experience. They were fun to teach as long as I paid attention to their body language and met their needs. In the case of the one with the big history, all he needed was to be called on first for answers. When I had called upon him and he had said his piece, then I could tell him it was others' turns without him building up that simmering heat. He had to graciously cede the floor: that was important to him. Give him the floor first and let him be gracious, and he remained a full and active and thoughtful class member.

I was surprised at how straightforward it was. Some of that was pure, dumb luck. Some of that was proper institutional support. But a lot of it was the students' willingness to come more than halfway to learn what I had to teach. Good learning is not passive and I was very fortunate in that all of these people were good learners under the very particular conditions I was teaching.

These weren't the best teaching experiences of my life, but they were in no way or shape the worst.

The worst is when a student (with no mental illness, in one of my other classes) comes into class carrying their privilege or their self-view as baggage. The rest of the class is secondary to their personal journey, and no small adjustments I can make to my teaching method will change this attitude. Their body language makes this clear. Their capacity to learn is impeded. My capacity to teach them anything real is often restricted, for they arrive at my doorstep with a sense of knowing that exceeds their actual capacity to assess their knowledge. That baggage is a burden to everyone.

I don't know why I hadn't put it together before that some kinds of privilege can be far more of hindrance to good learning than certain major mental illnesses which carry a bad rep. In my experience, though, it's so. An at-risk student is more likely to notice when the teacher is making an effort to work with them personally than someone who carries that baggage and doesn't try sufficiently to understand the world outside themselves. "I already know this," they say, and there is no place left for learning.

(no subject)

Jacob Silverman in Slate with another view of the need for robust criticism. He makes some links I hadn't made, which is handy.

(no subject)

I've noticed some obviously-anxious people checking my posts for the competition results. Alas, by the time I realised what the time was on Friday, my publisher (all the staff) was getting drunk with other Sydney publishers. I feel as if I'm in the wrong end of the business...

Anyhow, I'm sure they will have recovered by Monday morning.

I'm sure I will have recovered, too. I'm gadding tomorrow. I'll be in and out and being sociable. Since the migraine is half passed (And the weather change has happened! I'm almost-not-hurting right now. Also, I just achieved a load of washing.) relaxing with friends should deal with the other half adequately.

I had planned to do so much work today, but the eyes didn't let me*. The most they allowed was the watching of trashy movies and the typing of blogposts and the final packing of my new handbag, which fits everything, including my netbook, and is a lot easier to carry than the big messenger bag. I shall still do a bit of work. Just like last night, things are better late evening.

Although I might have snuck in some work today, in between trashy movies, for I have just discovered some notes...

One solid reality about this kind of migraine is that it makes me entirely and totally absent-minded. Teaching with it required much intense focus (and my new class possibly thinks my brain is everywhichwaytoSunday all the time) and everything since class has largely been done despite itself. I'm discovering things done all over the place. Notes for a proposal that ought to go in, a ticket booked, the bibliography printed (for I was going to work on it in front of the trashy movies, but can't actually read it yet - maybe tomorrow night). All this will add up, when I tally it.

The migraine will go when it goes: this is one of those uncontrollables. It's lifted enough, however, so I can be a bit social tomorrow in a scatty kind of way, and have not lost the entire few days. More cannot be asked.

Well, it can. So many friends are going to wonder if they can ask me to stop complaining. This is not going to happen yet. I have promised myself that I will stop complaining when I wake up for the thirtieth day running without pain and when I'm finally through perimenopause. Both those things. Until then, friends will just have to keep nodding politely and say, "There, there."




*ordinary migraine eyes. I'm seeing the specialist on Wednesday for a checkup anyhow, though. There's a CSFG meeting on Wednesday night. I hope that I get there and I doubly hope that I have opium eyes still. I need to get there a little early, carrying things, which could be tricky.

ETA (to the footnote): I have no meeting on Wednesday. It is not the third Wednesday of the month. This was me inadvertently demonstrating - yet again - how migraine-brain operates. If anyone wants to admire my pupil-filled eyes, they may have to drop in late Wednesday and demand a cuppa.