The Little Paper that Couldn't

I really just wanna take one of my son's toy trains and beat the ever living fuck out of it, for posterity's sake. May it lie stomped on the ground, destroyed in effigy if only because there really isn't a real little mother fucking engine that could. As I sit here and struggle with this stupid fucking paper for a class I didn't finish last semester, I encounter the same roadblock that I did over a month ago. Writer's block, a marked desire to do anything else, a refusal of my brain to comprehend what the hell it is I'm SUPPOSED to write, a boycott from thinking about anything academic ... all of it. I just can't seem to get this shit done. And what would it hurt my son if I destroyed one of his toy trains? Huh? He has dozens and scores of trains laying at the bottom of toy chests all over this house - he won't really notice, right? He won't ever know that I tore one of his trains to splintered little bits and I'll still be the best daddy in the whole world to him, right?

But I'll know - and it'll eat at me that I destroyed something that he so loves. A train. A fucking TRAIN. And what a conundrum I find myself in - the story of the little engine that could is mocking me and I can't do anything about it, not even in effigy, because my son LOVES trains.

I don't want to do this paper - the class is stupid, I won't need it and I can't be bothered with this nonsense! But I HAVE to do it. Stupid, no good, life lesson, blah blah blah, bitch ass paper.

THERE! I said it.

In other related news
My professor from another class, my independent study, wrote me that he enjoyed reading my final paper about how my being Latino and having a marital connection to the Black culture has shaped my world view and my professional practice. He mentioned how the minority perspective isn't really represented in the curriculum in the university and it really should be.

I politely wrote him back (names changed to protect identity's, cuz that's how we do here at JGC, unless you're picking your nose in public and I have my camera phone):

Thank you HARRY; I really did enjoy this project. I agree that these perspectives should be better incorporated into the DEPARTMENT'S curriculum. I have enjoyed the curriculum and have learned a tremendous amount about the AE field since starting in January 2006, but very little of it (in my opinion) focuses on power and other issues that the typical minority deals with in the classroom. I understand that to many people these types of factors are invisible and I don't fault anyone for being oblivious to forces they do not know about, understand or have had to live with, I really don't. But I do believe that adult educators need to be made aware that these issues are very real because they impact transfer of learning in tremendous ways.


Have you ever tried to research the history of the education of adults in the Black community? No? Interestingly enough, data is scarce.

Really!? Scarce? You mean people haven't been documenting things about the Black community? stttttoooooopppp.

But I really did enjoy that independent study, which I chose specifically because no other class I was taking or had taken was dealing with it. We'll see. I wonder if he'll ask me to get involved in some diversification effort of the department's curriculum.

I know, I know - who am I kidding. He's not going to change a fucking thing.

I'll let you know if I'm wrong - but I think I'm more likely to see Jesus do The Chicken Noodle Soup.

Lettin' it rain, and pourin' it out,

JACK


PS (notice how I totally diverted even YOUR attention away from this stupid fucking paper I have to write ... ugh.)