Graduate Seminar

In case it’s unfamiliar to you, graduate school, well, in the non-sciences, anyway, consists of a couple of things. First, immense fear. Quickly thereafter, boredom. Last, and usually during seminars, a plea for mercy to end the mind-numbing effect of seminar which often results in bleeding out of your ears. I exaggerate? Please. If that were the case, then there wouldn’t be such a high dropout rate amongst Ph.D. students. They can’t take it and do you know why? Because they be smart. 

Keeping in mind that I tend to lead a bit of a hapless life, strange and amusing incidents seem to just pepper my life. I’m not certain whether this is significant or not, but it really seemed to take shape in grad school. Now, I’m perfectly willing to concede that this is because prior to that, I was not really conscious but sort of floating through life, but on the other hand, the incidents did seem to grow distinctly more colorful.

For example. Seminar. Now, I’ve written several stories about my time as a grad student. In fact, I wrote an entire volume of short stories, each a scene out of my life. Fictionalized, yes, but marginally. Although there were characters who simply begged to be fleshed out and there I did take some liberties. Like the fellow buddhologist whose name I shall forever recall as “The Saint Bernard”—he looked like one, shook his head like one and he always wore comfortable sweats. Perfect. 

But this time, I was stuck in a deadly seminar. Wait, what am I thinking? That’s repetitious! They’re all deadly. Every single seminar has but one, no, wait, I exaggerate, they have two functions. First, seminars fulfill a professor’s teaching obligation in a venue wherein s/he has to do very little of aforementioned teaching activity. Two, it is always, and I do mean always, about a subject the professor is writing about. Some imminent volume. In this case, he, has got to fill the last two hundred of a three-hundred page book and you know what? He’s plumb out of insight. 

It’s pathetic when you think about it, but there he was, plumbing the depths of first to third year grad students for some brilliant insight into, oh, let’s just say how Buddhology inflicts a slow death upon graduate students?

At any rate, and I do wish I could make this up but I am simply not that creative, we were discussing some rather complex, no, I should be accurate here, we were discussing some tedious micro-point about Indian Buddhist archaeology or something and one particularly dim-witted art history student actually said, “Do you think we can compare this to the freeway system?” 

And before you ask, no, I did not want to kill myself. I contemplated killing her, for some time because the professor’s response was sincere. I concluded at that moment that art historians are stupid. Yes, I know. Me. Indulging in generalities while I’ve grown up being victimized by racism. But honestly. How in the world did she get accepted to UCLA? What’s more since she obviously was accepted, I could only conclude that the standards for art history grad students is significantly more flexible than for other Humanities fields.

This was just my lucky day because the seating arrangement was such that I was crammed in between some woman to my right who wasn’t all that friendly—another art history grad student—and a fellow 

Buddhologist  on my left. Another classmate, who began the Ph.D. phase the same year I did, and who incidentally liked me was, for some reason, seated across the room. He kept sending me these knowing grins but honestly, if you’re going to be a bonehead and not save me a seat, I really don’t think that you should take any liberties. That one he took later, well, let’s just say I was really enjoying my Guinness on tap—tasted like chocolate beer—so not really my fault.

Now, I’m going to veer into some stereotypes here, but given that a) I’m American Chinese, and b) I’ve dealt with lots and lots of erroneous stereotypes in my life, I feel justified in throwing out one of my own. Especially if it’s about one of my people. Well, actually, he wasn’t. So here I venture forth into some daring stereotypes. You see, I’ve found that Taiwanese are rather prissy. Even the men. There’s a whole cultural thing. I read this book by David Halberstom before he died on the Korean War which does an abso-fucking-lutely faboo job on explaining how a few annoying missionaries with high government connections changed the entire American discourse on what is China (not, apparently, China, but Taiwan) because of a whole host of money, military-saving-face, and friendship issues. Annoyingly, lots of Taiwanese people like to state they are not Chinese. Fine by me is what I say. Too prissy for me anyway. And you people never seem to understand the subtleties of the hyphenated identity Malcolm X and, well, lots of other people I admire since him, have discussed. 

See? Told you it was daring! *koff* 

At any rate, there I am. Sitting next to one of two Taiwanese dudes studying Buddhism. All the rest are white guys. And not just any old white guys, mind. One is Mormon. Another is a Brit twit. Another I nicknamed Mr. Dullworth the Turd (that would be Third in his deluded mind). They were the Three Stooges, and not in that nice way, either. My class had Mr. Hey, Can I Get In Your Pants If I Grin Stupidly At You From a Distance (evidently the answer, if I’m drunk enough, is yes), two Taiwanese guys, another angsty Brit twit, and Sybil-don’t-spell-it-with-an-I-first-and-my-husband-draws-pictures-of-him-as-a-baby-sitting-in-my-lap-and-gives-them-to-me, the last two who dropped out after two years  in the Master’s program.

Have you ever been in a situation where you just knew, absolutely knew, that you should leave? But you were too polite, it seemed to awkward? And years, and I do mean years, later, you’re still wondering why you were a coward? No? Okay. Well, bully for you. I do. Let me tell you, you, you never, ever, recover from the trauma. Ever. 

What, you ask? What could I possibly be talking about? 

And you see, that is the thing. It began so innocently. So inevitably, grad seminars are scheduled in the late morning or in the afternoon because they schedule undergrad classes in the morning to get those pesky peons out of the way. If you’re a professor, or if you’re a TA for that matter, you obviously can’t do both. So they schedule seminars later in the day, presumably after you’ve dispensed with the annoyances. 

Of course, being a sentient being, hell, all you have to be is conscious, you’re familiar with how gross personal hygiene habits can be. Those people who make you involuntarily grimace, against all etiquette exhortations, those behaviors that make you wish there was a mental trash receptacle for seriously disgusting? Alas, for some inexplicable and annoying reason, those are exactly those incidents I remember with the most beautiful clarity. It’s perverse.

So, true to form, I was in that space at that moment. Being tortured blind, watching my brains leak out of my ears from the sheer stupidity of my classmates, and worst of all, I was hungry. Why in Guanyin’s name do these people schedule seminars around mealtimes? Oh, right, that whole thing about the dullards, aka undergrads. *poo* ‘Course, if you had seen the personal lives of some of these profs, well, I think that the definition of dullards would take on an entirely different hue.

I’m sitting there. Starving. Embarrassingly, my stomach is making this known to my immediate seminar neighbors. Of course, I don’t care about the nincompoop to my right. If her compadre is any indication, then her intellect reaches about the height of a flatworm. The other guy, though he is Taiwanese, and he TA’s with me as well. He could gossip. On the other hand, he is really eccentric. Like one day, I had this conversation with him. Wait, let me rephrase, he had a conversation with himself. I happened to be there, too. So basically, he’s having this convo with himself in which he’s complaining that he should be the designated boy wonder for our advisor, he’s rather famous in Buddhology circles, Chris Stockwell Jr. (barf), not the other Taiwanese guy, because after all he does not have seniority. 

I don’t even remember his name, so I’m just going to give him one. Charles. He looks like a Charles. The other one’s name I’ll never forget. Will. What? Like William is too much, but Bill is too little? Whatever, you pretentious, short little turd monkey with the man-breasts. Whatever. He hated me because once, he observed that no one could look that way in a dress like I could. Hee said it like it was a criticism. It was definitely an insult. 

Jerk.

Anyway, so there Charles is. Reminding me exactly how hungry I am. Because he is about to thoroughly, and I do mean thoroughly, enjoy a Danish. 

I have to confess that when I’m hungry, I want savory. And if you’re on campus, you’ve got to adjust your expectations, according to distance and fare on offer. So given the proximity to Royce Hall, one of the, no, wait, we were in one of the bastard halls erected after the original four, Rolfe, where I didn’t learn all my English lit coursework. So Rolfe is even closer than Royce is to this, how shall I describe it? Elaborately disguised eating pen. It does remind me of a pig pen, but just a bit more hygienically arrayed. Tacos. Pizza. A salad bar, and can I just say that any person who actually thinks that dieting on a salad that makes you want to gnosh on some serious carbs in an hour and a half redefines the concept of delusional, a sandwich outlet and a burger stand. Oh, and then there’s the gross Panini stand right at the entrance which is for the losers who can’t quite get themselves to go all out for a gross salad. Whatever. 

So I like a good burger, but I mean, a good burger. All those trendy hipster burgers? Guess who started them all? Father’s Office. Guess where it’s located? Santa Monica? Guess where I’ve been going for my burgers for the last, like, decade and a half? Right. And then there’s In/N/Out Burger, no, don’t let your mind go there, it’s a burger joint. So I can’t do a burger on campus with mystery meat. Can’t. Be. Done. No. 

The really good thing is that the sandwich spot also offers fries. Thank god. Because you know, I really, really like fried foods. Like really. I don’t think I’ve met any fried foods I don’t like, although I confess I’ve never ventured into the sweet and fried arena. That does seem a little bit contradictory to me. But savory fried. Oh, okay, I also draw the line at inserting various bird cavities inside each other and frying them. That, also, seems a tad unnatural. But on the whole. Fried. Breaded. Evidently, at my favorite restaurant in the U.S., Ming Tsai’s Blue Ginger (my brother worked there after returning from France at my behest—hee hee), they use a combination of corn starch and other flours for a lighter concoction. I must say, it is a success. *Sigh*

I digress. What was I saying? I got lost in a haze of food orgasmia…oh, right. Sandwiches. Well, there I am thinking of a sandwich with provolone—I don’t know why I think that’s such a great sandwich cheese because it’s really bland but somehow at ucla, on a sandwich, it sounds awesome, with red onions, egg salad on sourdough with French fries on the side—and feeling my stomach grumble even more.

And then, it happened. My "friend" Charles broke out his Danish. It was going to be a feast evidently, since he set his Danish out on the table rather than his notebook. As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall his lack of notetaking. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t take any notes either but that wasn’t because I didn’t want to, it was simply that there was nothing worthwhile noting. Charles on the other hand seemed to think that simply showing up to seminar was sufficient. Maybe he believed in osmosis. I did note that apropos of nothing, he would chortle rather alarmingly, but I just assumed that this was a nervous tic. 

Actually, it’s distinctly possible that graduate school in the Humanities breeds a kind of clinical psychosis that is masked by subsequent careers in academia. How else does one explain those rather exciting fashion choices both the women and men make? Birkenstocks with mismatched socks are not a political statement, but rather, evidence of a very sick, unhygienic mind. I have no other way of explaining why if a person wears socks with sandals—hey I do it, too—s/he doesn’t do so with flare. Sartorial splendor need not be limited to what is at eye level. 

You know, I think it is no coincidence that I had sex with that one classmate soon after. Probably a futile attempt to erase this traumatic memory from my mind. That clearly did not work. Serves me right for setting my sights so low.

You want me to get to the end? Ok, I will. Close your eyes. What? You can't and also read? Figuratively then, close your eyes. You're hungry. Dreaming about some lovely sandwich with shoestring fries on the side. Insert loud mastication. Even better, it's not you who's making that sound. It's someone sitting right in front of you. So you can see every bit of food being crushed between his teeth and mixed with his saliva. No, wait, it's not done. Then, after he's thoroughly demolished said bite, he immediately drops the danish like the thing is on fire, and no, not in a good way. He thrusts his right hand into his jacket pocket, whips out a bottle of hand sanitizer and puts a dollop on his hands and thoroughly rubs his hands together until it disappears. Then, he let out a satisfied sigh.

Finished? Repeat. Yes, that entire sequence.

Between him, the leering neanderthal across the table and Miss Freeway, I thought I'd died and gone to hell. I mean, seriously?

So anytime anybody be rockin' their doctorate, keep this little episode in mind. Goodnight!