That KUDL Moment

Asking someone if he's been through Hell sounds a bit abstract, since Hell might be different things to different people. Asking someone if he's been through an MA program while working -- well, that could get a greater response of horror.

Yes, I survived a Master's program while working a teaching job. Didn't think I would survive, at least for a while. I was holding my Master's studies together really well, until it was time to do my student teaching.  In my case, student teaching more or less did me. 

Other MA-seeking students in the course handled their student teaching well. I didn't. Nothing I did felt right, and the professor observing me underscored the aspects of my teaching "needing improvement." The professor's suggestions were tinged with an anger from her about my presumption to teach in the manner humans could recommend.

In many ways, it was how I framed the work. I was capable as a teacher and hard-working, and had taught before to greater success, but an inner depression and anxiety seemed to grow exponentially when it was framed in my mind as part of my grade. To a certain degree, I framed my performance in terms of how it looked rather than what it accomplished. 

At the lowest point of this low situation, I had to lie down on my futon. I was so depressed and despondent, I had to turn on the easy-listening station, KUDL. It sounds like "cuddle." Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck.


So there I was, on my futon, listening to easy listening. Not good easy listening, like Bill Evans or Dave Brubeck or something that is, well, good. No, crappy pseudo-jazz, with all the lilt and none of the spirit, designed to sugar-coat your inner torments and therefore call greater attention to them.

Didn't work. Didn't die then and there, but did think, "Wow. This is the lowest moment in my life. This is what it's like to be a junkie." I don't really know what it's like to be a junkie, but I projected a cannot-stay-but-cannot-go feel throughout oneself. It's as if the tension of Waiting for Godot was accepted as one's own doom.

Don't know exactly how I survived, but I did. After getting a C in my student teaching -- a lousy, stinkin' C -- I had my last semester with an easier graduate-assistant gig and nobody grading me.

It's hard to tune out the eyes upon you when they can pass a verdict or two against you. Work has to be done with a sense of what it gets done in a productive manner. This can be lost when one feels at sea and afraid to admit one is at sea. Still, the admission should be made before getting more lost at sea becomes fatal.

Been some time since I listened to KUDL, since my one and only time to turn to that station. Hey, does that station even exist any more? Google it. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Still, here I am, in Asia, as a college instructor. I'll have to find a better way to work and go to school than whatever rhythm I was on in my MA-seeking days. And just to be on the safe side, I'll listen to Rush, They Might Be Giants, and the Aquabats instead.

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