[ edmondchang.com ]

I AM TIRED. Not beat down, bedraggled, soul-sucking tired like I was a month ago when I was in a mortal struggle with pneumonia. But I am still not quite recharged and recovered. I generally feel okay but I tire out pretty quickly. Even just a few hours at school is enough to make me want to put on my PJs and crawl into bed. I guess that’s to be expected after being sick for so long.I am mostly better now, though I think I’ve been saying “mostly” for a week or so now. Every time I talk to someone, medical professional or otherwise, the time for full recovery from pneumonia keeps getting longer and longer. I have given up on trying to guess when I’ll be “done” being “mostly” and finally get to be “all” better. I had a little bit of a worry last week. At the start of last week, I had a low grade fever, my sinuses were all pressure-y, and my cough worsened. I emailed my physician and she recommended that I just go in to the health center to get checked up, to get someone to listen to my lungs. We ended up doing all of my follow-up tests last Tuesday. My x-rays came back negative for pneumonia and everything else seemed good. I just had a cold and a little bit of a bronchial thing.

My cold is mostly gone. I got put on a steroid inhaler and my bronchial thing is mostly gone. I feel pretty good considering. It will be nice when I can just go about my day to day without having to catch my breath or cough up a lung.

Basically, I’m just trying to rest and take it easy. Of course, whenever I need to do that, my life is always suddenly busy with teaching stuff, meetings, places to be, due dates, group demands, and so on.

The biggest deadline was my prospectus defense. Basically, after I turned in the revision to my prospectus, the twelve-odd-some paged document that ostensibly articulates my dissertation project and outlines proposed chapters, I needed to meet with my committee to talk about it and have them sign off on it. Well, my “defense” (more like a meeting thankfully) was last Thursday. Alas, I couldn’t manage to get the meeting to fall on a holiday, but it was sandwiched between Chinese New Year and Groundhog Day.

The meeting went fine. It began with two of my professors, Kate and Eva. They started by saying that they are passing the prospectus and that they felt I was ready to move into the dissertation. So, at least, I didn’t have to worry about passing or not passing. And then they proceeded to ask me really difficult and scary questions. I expected as much out of my committee, who have reputations for challenge and rigor. I did my best to answer their questions, which focused mainly on elaborating parts of my project, on explaining why I chose the texts that I chose to focus on, on how I conceived of certain parts of my argument. That’s all. The difficulty of course is that I haven’t written the dissertation yet, so much of what I don’t know I don’t know because I haven’t crossed those bridges yet. My chair Tom arrived halfway through the meeting and added his questions, suggestions, and wisdom. Part of the meeting was about my project and what I wanted to do. Part of the meeting was thinking about how to go about actually writing a 200-some page document. And part of the meeting was about planning for graduation, for going on the market, for professionalizing, and strategizing about how to make sure my project was marketable.

It was tough. On some levels it was harder than my oral exams. But I got through it. Or I should say that I coughed my way through it. And now I am officially dissertating.

More soon.

FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FRIEND JEFF!  I hope he is well and has a great day. Second of all, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! And third of all, Happy Inauguration Eve!  (I’m sure the poetics of the inauguration of Barack Obama falling so close to MLK Day will not be lost, even though such logics bespeak of certain racialized — if not racist — hopes and desires and guilt.  But, let me be positive and “yes we can”-y for now.)

In other important, national news, it’s been about a week since I finished my course of antibiotics.  Moxifloxicin.  What a great name. I think I should name my next cat Moxiflox or Moxifloxi.  I definitely feel better.  I no longer feel like I’ve been dragged through the sewers.  Fever is gone.  Aches are gone.  General well-being is up.  Energy is returning.  But, I am still resting and recovering and healing. I still have a little bit of a cough, which thanks to an inhaler is lessening each day.  And I still can’t really exert myself too much.  I get tired fast and out of breath fast still.

I went back to work last week.  I taught Monday through Thursday.  It’s been really good to go back to my routine and back into the classroom.  I was feeling bad for having to cancel the first week of classes.  And I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get caught up. But things are moving along swimmingly. I think we’re back on track.  Though, I must admit that I have never taught this class before, and I am learning as much as my students are about how to structure things, about the readings and the game texts, and about what it means to study, do, use, analyze, and understand “cultural studies.”  I’ve framed my class with the idea that we’ll look at certain cultural studies terms, ideas, interventions, and keywords as we dive into “virtual world” and “video game” texts. In other words, the games we play and the texts we explore become the occasions for thinking about cultural studies perspectives and methodologies. But the class is set up so that we’re thinking about the texts first, then linking them up to the cultural studies second.  It’s inductive, but I think productive.

The first part of last week, I just went in to school (early since I go in with Jane, who teaches at 8:30 AM, and I teach at 9:30 AM), taught, and then went home. Walking across campus was more tiring than I expected.  On Thursday of last week, I decided to see if I could do a full day.  I went in, taught, had office hours, had lunch, hung out, had collegial hours in the afternoon, then went to pub. By the end of the day, I was exhausted.  There is something qualitatively different about sitting at home and resting (or “doing nothing”) and sitting in my office or on campus resting and “doing nothing.”  I think it’s because at school I am always “on” and talking to students, talking to people, watching my behavior, doing work, thinking about work, being extroverted, and such.

Thursday was also an emotional day because Greg got laid off from work.  I was on chat around lunch time, and he told me that he had just lost his job. He called me shortly thereafter to tell me what happened.  Basically, his company was downsizing.  In his workgroup, he and one another senior person got laid off.  It’s all about saving money, right?  Why pay a senior employee’s salary when you can pay someone much less to do the same job? I think it was a shock to him (though he had a feeling the week before about it).  It was definitely a shock to me. I thought he was safe given that he worked on key projects and applications for his company. I could tell he was shaken. He’s in good shape, though. He’s got a generous severance package, and his company is bending over backwards to make the “transition” a good one. Of course, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to get dumped. Greg met up with me at the pub.  We talked. He talked. He commiserated. He vented. I think it was good for him to get out.  And I think this can be a good opportunity for him if he’s creative, proactive, graceful, and patient.  He needs to not take it personally, though.  He’ll be okay.  He’ll be more than okay. Besides, he’s got good friends, good contacts, lots of experience, family, and me.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent just hanging out, decompressing, and doing more of the “resting” thing. Friday night, one of Greg’s (former) coworkers had a little gathering at her fancy house on the coast of western Magnolia.  It was way out there. The party was “German sausage” themed.  Basically, they served different sausages, sauerkraut, pretzels, and German beer and sweets.  I brought the fixings for my almost world famous “ginger cape cods,” which I should name “Tina Louises” or “Ginger Grants.”  The party was okay. I was really tired.  And I really didn’t know anyone there.  Plus it was mostly “grown up” types, I guess, consisting of couples and professional world people and such. Even though most of these people are in my age group, I don’t feel like I am in their circles and leagues. I’m fine with that, actually, but it makes for awkward conversations. I had a nice time and am glad that I can hang out with Greg and his friends. But afterward it was nice to go home, be quiet, and sleep.

Greg got World of Warcraft as a holiday present from his mom.  So, he’s been slowly learning how to play the game.  We spent the weekend playing together.  He made a Draenei warrior named Missoula.  I made a Draenei shaman named Ocoro.  In just a few days, we’ve hit level 12.  He’s still getting used to everything.  There’s a lot to take in in WoW and a lot to learn how to do.  But it’s been fun, diverting, and distracting.  I think I get a little bossy, though, because much of the game is second nature to me.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve met a completely new player to WoW.  But Greg’s bright and just by playing around he’ll get it in no time.  Interestingly, I bet a number of my students taking my class will also be WoW newbies, and I’ll have to try to find ways to ease them into the game. I think, though, that part of the challenge of learning a game is part of the fun (or can be part of the fun, I should say).

Saturday was spent mostly hanging out and playing WoW.  Then we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was good but a little rougher than I expected. I also expect the current hype surrounding the movie might do well to be filtered through a little bit of Edward Said.  Moreover, the “feel good movie”- and “triumph of the human spirit”-ness of the film does little to stray from conventional narratives about rugged individualism, the “American Dream” or better yet the “Capitalist Dream,” and idealized romantic love.  That said, I think there are things about the film that are brilliant.  I particularly like the actors of the first third of the film; the kids are amazing.  The images of the city are staggering and dense.  And I love the music, particularly M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” remix and A. R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” used in the closing credits. I would have liked a little more commentary on issues like class, race, religion, and such. But I very much liked it and recommend it.

Sunday was spent hanging out some more. Greg and I did head up to Alderwood to check out the Circuit City ”going out of business” sale — which alas was not really a sale and the quality of the store seriously bespoke of why the company was bell up. I did pick up a few things, but for the most part the sale prices couldn’t beat Amazon’s regular prices or Best Buy’s prices or even Target’s everyday prices. After Circuit “Shitty,” we hit up our favorite gay-for-pay store, Target.  We went there mostly for household sundries, but I did manage to pick up a couple of really good deals on an orange hoodie, a shirt, and a vest (though I think I’m going to have to take the vest back because everyone says it makes me look like I’m trying to be a gangster).  The rest of Sunday was spent WoWing.

Now, it’s Monday.  A day off.  And I’m trying to get caught up with some little projects here and there.  That’s about it.  Hopefully, it’ll be a good week and a good rest of the month.  Chinese New Year is next Monday.  I hope for a better new year than the one I just had.  More soon.

IT HASN’T BEEN A FULL WEEK YET SINCE THE START OF THE YEAR AND ALREADY IT’S BEEN A DOOZY!  The past seven days have been intense in ways that only a Stanley Kubrick film could convey — all volumes and movements and angles and tracking shots, all emotions rendered as part of the landscape, and the landscape casts long and deep shadows on all of its inhabitants.  The past week has been a challenge and a new experience for my sensorium. So, where should I begin?

From Christmas to December 29, I took a short trip down to San Francisco with Greg just to get away from Seattle, to have a little holigay, and to visit my sister.  We almost didn’t get out of the city because of all the snow.  We got up early Christmas Day, drove down to the airport, and found that there was no short, mid, long term parking anywhere. Rather than take our chances and given we had an early headstart, we drove back up to the city, parked Greg’s truck at my house, and got a taxi down the airport. It was smooth flying from there (given a short delay). Pictures of the trip are here.

The overall trip was great. We did a lot of things, saw a lot of things, shopped a lot of things, and hung out a lot. Exactly what the doctor ordered. I even stopped in on the last day of the trip, Monday, to the Modern Language Association’s annual conference; I just wanted to hear Alenda give her paper and then duck out. I did run into a few people from both UW and UMD. It was a very frantic conference. I do not look forward to having to do that gauntlet this year for the job market. Monday  afternoon, we headed to the airport for our flight back. And it hit me like a bouquet of sledgehammers. I got achy, stiff, chilled, fevery, sore throaty, sinusy all at once. It felt like the flu.

Over the following week, my symptoms seemed to subside and come back, subside and come back. New Year’s Eve was curtailed by the fact that I just felt downright crummy. The end of the week came, and I kind of knew that I should go into see the Health Center. But, I felt so bad and so alone that I didn’t want to trek by bus all the way to campus. When the weekend hit, my fever hit astonishing highs and depths, though my sore throat was gone.  Basically, I had had a running temperature between normal and 103 for a week. Something was very not right. Alas, the Health Center is not open over the weekend. I would have to go to the ER, which I was loathe to do. I called a counsulting nurse and she was nice but not very helpful. So, I decided to ride it till Monday. The night between Sunday and Monday was probably the worst I’ve felt in a long time.  My fever was so crazy and I had sweated so much that I woke up literally in a puddle with everything slick to the touch.  Hideous.

Monday morning, I went in, barely taught and introduced my syllabus to the class, and then headed straight to the Health Center. I was seen pretty quickly, and right off the bat, my vitals were alarmingly high. Temperature: 103. Pulse: 131. Blood pressure: high. Signs of extreme dehydration. The doctor immediately put me on a nebulizer and on a saline IV to get my hydrated as bloodwork was done. Then I had to get chest x-rays. It turns out that I had pneumonia but only in my left lung.  Intravenous antibiotics were given, more tests, more questions, more vitals checking. Over a period of about seven hours, I did cool down, I did calm down, I did level out a little. But my ability to draw in enough oxygen was still severely compromised. The doctor felt that I should get admitted to the hospital for further care and for observation.

So, I got medically admitted to the UW Medical Center. Greg came to pick me up from school and escorted me over to the hospital. I was given my own room. And the same battery of questions, examinations, pokings and proddings started all over again. It’s a teaching hospital, so I had the whole Grey’s Anatomy thing going on, too. It wasn’t too bad. Greg kept me company for as long as he could (though it was cute that the nurse listed him as family). I got more antibotics. And I had the best night’s sleep (which was still interrupted) I had had in a long time.

The next day, I felt better. Still really weak and short of breath. But the doctors decided that I could safely go home. I would be given a regimen of oral antibiotics. I was to rest for the rest of the week. And follow up next week with the Health Center on campus.

The details are left out because I just don’t have the energy right now to write them all out.  I have just been trying to keep things low-key, low-stress, low-worry. I cancelled the rest of my first week of classes, which I felt horrible doing. I assigned online work the students could do via our class message boards. I updated family and friends. And I have just been convalescing at home like some Victorian woman.