An Allegory

And so that monstrous fiend threw an incongruous fit of utter frustration and joy. It looked to the floor and saw the stacks of books and notes mixed incestuously with one another. Not a mote of dust settled on the hard covers because the detestable creature read each and every page over and over again. It kicked against the mound of mess and reached for the cloak hanger.

The beast threw on a rich, dark jacket that barricaded its body from discriminating eyes. It ripped the door open and graced the crisp morning with ugliness. They don't hate me anymore. They don't like me anymore. Not that they ever did, but they... they just don't do anything anymore! it thought silently. There was no use dwelling on it but they were crucial nevertheless. The deformed fellow calmed a bit. Something about the fog and sewer scented morning shielded its hate against itself. It stomped deliberately on the wet and slimy road, which produced a sloppy sound that settled the creature. It moved to nowhere.

It used to know itself; it used to be sure of its being, or at least the perception of its being. There was the surety of its deformity of morals that was bound to attract the hate of pious, idiotic fools. It was stupidity, as far as the old triglodyte was concerned, for people to lose their commonsense to spiritual belief, for which moron would take a leap of faith that demanded its own death? And the hunched beast had an unwavering surety that its un-naturalness, its un-attractiveness, was so far from the script of normality that there was now a point to live. Its goal was to piss-off the sons-of-a-bitches who always had to be beside, always beside, the forgotten birth of their monstrous child. These were some of its convictions that gave it a reason to breathe; a reason to remain the antagonising force of transgressiveness and freakishness. What more could a swine of society ask for than to be the violator of humanity? For it knew that in its violation comes the constitutions of humanity. The jackal laughed suddenly and raucously. Humanity had to thank it. But the creature has been defeated, and it wrecked its brains for the reason - always, always the need for reason - of its defeat.

The fog had lifted itself from the sour odour of its giant companion. The brute stopped in mid-stride and looked to the right. Blue and pink blossoms dotted the ends of stinking weeds. The entire stretch of the pavement was lined with those disgusting colours. Just my day, it complained in its throbbing head. In its contemplation, it had forgotten about the journey. It looked-up and squinted its black-rimmed eyes against the scintillating sun. The pathway was a well-crafted stroke between the decrepit slum and sanitised civilisation, and the road ended narrowly at a rainbow painted gate. At least the artist, it thought, had a sense of humour.

The gates creaked gently and a couple walked through. They held each other's hands and strolled through the park towards the horrific thing. There was a light breeze from the West; a rotten odour mingled with the sweetness of Autumn flowers. The creature was sure to be noticed but it made no effort to hide.

Damnation! Utter damnation! Why can't I figure it out? Why can't they do something? Anything! It lumbered deliberately but carefully towards the youths and at each step grew increasingly frustrated. It knew that the greatest achievement of being queer was to be respected for being queer. It did not matter if the respect was hateful, conceited or genuine. The respect was there that it lived monstrously. Differences were accepted as a fundamental to existence. But where did the poison seep through? When did the toxin come to effect? The poor beast was overwhelmed and growled irritatingly under its breath.

The couple was now approximately five feet from the creature. They stopped, stared at the deformed thing, and smiled ingenuously. The girl looked slightly nauseous but made a tremendous effort to choke back the bile. The boy simply stopped breathing for a moment. Each gave a courteous nod to the trembling creature and walked past.

And that was the last straw. The fiend bellowed with rage and threw its arms wildly in the air. It screamed and screamed till not a molecule of oxygen was left in its body. In defeat, it crashed onto the floor like a sack of rubbish and sobbed into gnarled hands. Indifference!! It was always indifference! In catharsis it found the source of the toxin. It was the politics of insouciance all along. The death of differences and the death of multiplicity; the death of paradoxes and the death of dialectics - all heralded the birth of insouciance. The monster folded its arms over knees and rocked on the drying ground. For once it its life it was lost. What is to become of me? What does it mean to be me? It was the death of humanity that it cried for. It was the death of pedagogy that it cried for. What was one to teach if all who were taught drank the hemlock of insouciance?

The sun rose to its zenith. The noon light dried the sleepiness of the morning. The blue and pink flowers began to wilt against the contrasting cold and heat of the day till there was nothing but dried shrubs of brown stalks. The creature on the ground sat very still. Then the breeze came again, but this time it stripped the layers off the beast. Piece by piece of its body were carried by the wind. First the crumpled jacket, then the wrinkled skin, then strings of muscle, and then the ashes of the skeleton. It was a most odd phenomena. The thing has simply ceased to exist.

Just Whinging

It's been a tough few weeks. As usual my facade is immaculately shifty and no one could ever be wiser.

At the moment it's a lot of monetary problems. Yes, there is always that isn't it? We seem to rule the world with words and ideas - and we do rule the world with words and ideas. But there's always that question of cash. There's always that bill to pay just when you are a hairline's distance from knowing what the hell Deleuze and Guattari was on about.

Money, money, money, money. They don't make the world go round. It makes us go round the world. And the thing is we're always stuck somewhere between Indian non-materialism and Western Capitalism.

I'm also at the moment trying to get my Permanent Residency in Western Australia. I've been in this country for nearly 7 years and on the books I'm nothing more than a foreigner. How funny - Multiculturalism takes us into its bosom only to throw us out with the dishwater. Australia doesn't care who you are or what you are. As long as you make the point system on the Immigration chart, you're all right. Oh, I forgot to mention the other criteria - $3500 government bond. That's coming out of my arse along with the money I saved as a University prostitute. Great.

It's always this time of the year that gets me on edge. I feel unstable. For days I have been treading on this thin line that stretches out of my body. It looks like my intestines - convoluted and messy; bloody and gore. It's painful - this extension of myself to worries and anxiety. It's all in the head really. But still, the tension and lactic acids travel all over. I'm looking for casual tutoring as well. Frankly, I'm really sick of it. Prostituting in university all over again. There's only so much that one can service the industry before there's nothing left of the self.

I have looked for ways to feed my passion for teaching and I have found it, but it is still extremely unsatisfying. I want a fulltime job so that this arduous and incessant search for work will end. But universities are cheap bastards that would not give me a second glance unless they can make a profit. I'm really, really sick and tired of this constant travelling and movement between universities. It's just so draining. I feel empty at times. Why? I love teaching(?) I love teaching(.) It is, as I have said, unsatisfactory.

All right. Enough Whinging. What the hell am I doing up at this hour whinging??! God I'm turning into Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Arrive Derci!

Outcome-based Education - RIDICULOUS

A student of mine - J - wrote this to me:

I'm writing a news article about the fact Outcomes Based Education will not
benefit students who are planning on attending university. I was wondering if
you were at least semi-knowledgeable on the topic (or you could pretend to be? -
the article is only going to be read by my tutor :-)) and could answer a few of
my questions?

1)Firstly, do you believe OBE will negatively impact students planning on
attending university? Why or why not?
2)In your position as a tutor, do you believe incoming students taught under an
OBE system will have an advantage compared to the students you have currently
(the ones who have recently completed high school)?


And I said:

Hi dear,

Yes, I know about this OBE plan that the institution wants to implement. Let's just say it still needs a lot of work. But I'll answer your questions as succinctly as I can:

1) No. OBE will not negatively impact student's attendance to University. The whole point of OBE is to encourage further practical learning and hands-on experience for students in professional White Collar vocations. The University is shaping itself to become a large workshop designed to attract rather than detract students from OBE highschools. In other words, and here is the crux of the problem, universities are implementing the strategies of OBE into their system so that the capitalist system could choose from a variety of well-honed and 'educated' mechanical parts. They're also called fresh-graduates. It is here that I get particularly upset, but that's for another time.

2) Depends on what you are doing. It is clear that disciplines with a high-level of practical components in their units would definitely benefit from an Outcome Based Education system. For example, Engineering, Science, Law and even Social Science subjects like Psychology. However, there is a definite set-back with OBE systems. Institutions that apply OBE in learning tend to dumb down the subjects so that they may get a good aggregate of students through highschool. The problem occurs when the demands of some university subjects that incorporates philosophy or social science theories cannot be simply and concisely negotiated as practical learning hopes to achieve. The causality of OBE is that it would send through students from highschool who know the exact field in which they wish to master, but by doing so the student has a poor holistic knowledge that is necessary for critical thinking. Put it this way, if you're a cobbler and everyday of your life you have been trained to mend and make shoes, would you ever need to ask why people wear shoes? It might even be possible that the cobbler does not know what constitutes the physiology of feet. All he or she is trained for is to mend shoes. That's OBE teaching. The reason why some of us leftist academics are particularly unhappy about the OBE system is because it reeks of a capitalist enterprise. The great machine that is capitalism is training little prosthetic humans to do the job. You're not asked to think about worldly issues or philosophise about the symbiosis of life and work. Oh no. Just do your job like that mechanical dustbin there with auto-sensors. Yes, students who just want a certificate for a job will have a bit of an edge from OBE, but is practical learning the sole purpose of education? Must learning be practical for it to be purposeful? Some questions to ponder.