Fellow academics,

I need urgent help from you. Remember the worst student you ever had. Then one who made you think, “God, please, not again” whenever you saw his name on the course roll. The one who was completely hopeless in every single class she took with you. Whose dog ate his homework so often that you started suspecting he lived in a kennel. Who, time and again, disturbed your teaching by snoring (seriously, I’m not exaggerating) in the middle of your lecture. Who was so bad that you and your colleagues expressed your condolences to each other whenever she took a course with one of you. The one whose knowledge seemed to diminish with every course he attended. The one who did not participate a single time in any of the class discussions.

Can you see this student in your mind’s eye?

Now imagine that this student asks you for a letter of recommendation to graduate school. What would you respond? If you could give me the actual words you’d use, I’d be very very grateful.

P.S. Imagine also that this student is the nicest person in the world and you really don’t want to hurt their feelings.

On the one hand, people with low self-esteem have a very poor opinion of themselves. But on the other hand, they believe that the entire world is permanently concentrated on them, observing their every move, trying to catch them in some gaffe.

I find it impossible to comprehend how they can simultaneously hold the belief that they are worthless pieces of rubbish and that the rest of the universe has nothing better to do than obsess about them all day long.

“The Muslim people in Spain built beautiful synagogues. Everywhere else they build mosques but in Spain they built synagogues because of how tolerant they were.”

” Unlike in Latin America, in the US there is no racism.”

“While the US did eliminate most of the indigenous populations, that wasn’t such a big deal.”

“Lope de Vega’s poetry shows a lot of self-hatred. I’d hate myself too if I belonged to a culture that was destroying the indigenous civilizations in the New World!”

“It is not surprising that the US supported Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. It isn’t the first dumb thing we did internationally nor the last. You’ve got to be real smart first to arm the Taliban and then to fight against it in Afghanistan!”

“As early as 1891 Jose Marti warned that the United States might invade Cuba. He was right because the US had been invading other countries for centuries.”

“Unlike Latin American identities, the US identity was formed with no European influence.”

“Everything bad in the world happens because of religion. “

Every single day some creepo searches for me on Google. I feel like I need to remind people that if you feel like Googling some random blogger, you are pathetic. You need to get a life like yesterday.

I’m so busy that I even run through my own house instead of walking because there is so much to do. Posts are written on the run and on the bus. Yet there seem to be crowds of people whose lives are so empty  that they choose to waste them on researching me. It’s like my posts on psychological hygiene have all been in vain.

I just found a classic example of projection. The author of the article passionately despises single mothers and low-income families and projects this contempt onto  “our society.”  Of course, it’s easier to blame some imaginary “society” than to accept that she is a hopeless self-hating hypocrite who sees herself as worthless unless a man has validated her existence with “a piece of paper.”

Whenever I see anybody write, “our society tells us that. . .” or “we are conditioned to. . .” I immediately know that what I’m seeing is a projection. The beliefs the author assigns to “society” or conceals behind the use of the passive voice are his or her own.

By the way, when I had my card rejected at a dollar store, of all places, all I saw in the faces of people around me was compassion and a desire to help me avoid feeling any discomfort over it. Maybe that’s because my philosophy is “Shit happens” and I see nothing at all shameful in having financial problems. Or being a single parent, for that matter.

I know that any plant will die in my care because I will forget to water it or put it in a place where it can’t thrive. So I bought a cactus to avoid harming an innocent plant. A cactus, I decided, would survive me.

And what do you think? I found a way to damage the poor cactus. Normally, when people need to write a check, they just write it. I, however, always create a lot of hustle and bustle, a lot of flailing and arm-waving around the process. I was writing checks and somehow managed to knock off the cactus from a high shelf. The pot flew off into the air, the ground and that white stuff they add to it to feed the cactus or whatever spilled everywhere, and the poor plant dropped onto the floor.

The cactus now looks like a furry, prickly green pang of conscience even though I re-potted it (using the soil from N.’s aloe plant I killed a while ago).

Neurotypicals are, indeed, quite bizarre. They even interpret laughter as needed, first and foremost, to facilitate social interactions. Is there anything in their lives not aimed at being sociable? Anything they do just for fun, to enjoy themselves, to have a good time, without having any peer group to impress and another person to connect with at every single moment?

I laugh a lot. Dozens of little things make me howl with laughter every single day. But it could have never occurred to me to laugh in order to experience something called “in-groupness” (the ugly word is from the linked article, so don’t blame me) and to “fit in socially”, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Jennifer Armstrong asked me to comment on the following:

Marc de Jong: I was raised a feminist by my mom who came from a long tradition of strong feminist women. her aunts, her mother, her grand mother and even her great grand mother. I studied feminism at university with Betty Freidan and I read Simone de Bouvoir avidly in philosophy. There are several famous male feminists, Phil Donahue (who went to my University), Alan Alda, John Lennon and Barack Obama. Some weeks ago a friend shared a planned parenthood post on my wall. It was excellent and having held the hand of two young and terrified catholic girls during abortion who just made a mistake and fell pregnant and approached me because they sensed I could be trusted. They were right to be scared their families would have cut them off immediately and they would not finish school and have an unwanted baby and live in poverty and scorn for the rest of their lives (isn’t religion wonderful?) I joined the debate and proposed ” If 80% of women in the states homemakers and working just refused to do their jobs for just two days. They would crash the economy for six months and all their demands would be fastracked and approved.”

The vitriol and foul language that followed was unbelievable. I was mocked ridiculed accused of trolling for pussy. told to fuck off assfuck over and over and much worse I said it is a proposal I welcome all criticism. I was accused of mansplaining a new word to me that I worked out to mean man knows best always so fuck off dickless prick we dont need men sistas can do it by themselves.

Planned Parenthood is a misnomer being funded by the government. Its Manhaters Anonymous. The agenda runs deep the history of PP is rife with examples of women who argued among other things to kill newborn males and disguise them as abortions. they also argued the case for eugenics not racially like Hitler but by sex. The idea is to have a massive female majority in global society with just enough enslaved men as sperm donors. They are now even more emboldened by biotechnology and stem cells and cloning that that they sense that having fooled Obama they can commit global xy menocide and have a planet with half the population, fantastic resources and space beautiful space and me time. And create a feminine utopia.

This is fact.

Im kind and true and believe in unconditional love and forgiveness and the closest person you will ever meet to Jesus.

But do not understimate my beautiful mind.

And as the greatest natural fencer he had ever seen according to Russian Gennadi Tyschler coach of more Olympic gold medalists in history. Be warned.

There are endless men and women whose personal lives have failed completely so they post these kinds of comments everywhere they can. The comments always have the same structure:

1. “I’m the most feminist of all feminists and I was raised at Friedan’s knee and nursed by Beauvoir.” Every single time, these names are trotted out. Sometimes, Gloria Steinem makes an appearance.

2. “I tried helping feminists but they abused me and heaped vitriol on me.” (Sometimes, the bad feminists also take away our sufferer’s wife / husband, poison his or her kittens and inflict other forms of pain and suffering.)

3. “You don’t know it but there is a secret feminist conspiracy to run the world.”

4. “Beware, friend! The Big Feminist is watching!”

What is especially funny is that I’ve heard the exact same speeches delivered against Jews, Liberals, and “socialists.”

It kind of hurts my feelings that nobody makes such pretty conspiracy stories about Ukrainians. What is a poor Ukrainian supposed to do to make herself be seen as a serious contender for world domination?

P.S. Thank you, Jennifer Armstrong for providing this beautiful quote.

When I teach only in Spanish (like last semester, for example), get a very noticeable accent in English. But when I teach only in English (like right now), my English becomes perfect and the accent is nearly imperceptible.

What makes this curious is that I teach online this semester. This means I don’t actually get to speak English. I only write. I speak a lot less English now than last semester because I’m mostly at home alone or with N. Yet, my English pronunciation gets better.

Why do people keep insisting that online courses save money? I’m finishing my very first online course, and I can’t figure out how anybody’s money has been saved. All I can think of is that there has been less wear and tear on chairs and floors in a classroom. Nothing else comes to mind. Not even electricity has been saved since on our campus electricity blasts on all summer long whether there are any people present or not. My office, for example, is illuminated like a Christmas tree during the 4 months I’m out of it, and I have no control over that.

So where are the savings that an occasional online course is supposed to produce?