I’m not made for the life of intrigue, folks. Somebody just made gruel out of me and ate me for supper. I lost the game before I even found out it had begun.
Shit. I’m just too simple-minded. I always blab out everything I think the moment I think it or even before. It never occurs to me that not everybody is the same way and that people might lie and scheme to get their way.
I’m a simpleton and a dupe.
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s better not to play their games, anyway, as it chews up too much energy. I’ve learned that is my sparring style. Most often, I’d rather get hit a few times and spar on my own terms, than have to think about what the other person is doing, or get into their head. Getting into their head doesn’t interest me. Just hit me, and I will soon figure it out and counter-attack.
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The problem is, when you are not paying attention, people involve you against your own will and use you as a patsy. Which is what just happened to me. I’d also prefer that everybody went in for clean honest fights. But many people prefer to scheme and intrigue.
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That’s why I don’t feature predominantly in the contemporary workplace. Sometimes, indeed very often, I can actually see the scheming starting to take place, but I don’t feel inclined to stoop so low as to combat it on a similarly scheming level.
But you can see I have reaped umpteen rewards by not lowering myself. The lines on my face tell a story. I’m not afraid of anything and I’m full of integrity.
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You have a very beautiful, inspired and expressive face. It’s a face of a fighter.
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I, however, have the face of a little innocent angel which is very annoying because that’s not how I feel inside.
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Thank you so much! You are kind. Although, I feel that it is a fighter’s face, too.
I didn’t think I would enjoy getting older, but I am actually really starting to revel in it. Just beginning.
In my youth, my face was a blank canvass and I used to go and stand in front of a mirror to see what I could find in it. Nowadays, it’s all good.
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“In my youth, my face was a blank canvass and I used to go and stand in front of a mirror to see what I could find in it. Nowadays, it’s all good.”
– Yes, this was exactly what I was talking about in the other thread. We create our faces with our own lives.
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I wholly agree with the philosophy you espouse here. So, if you stay the course (whatever that course is for you, as an individual) you should get better and better.
We need a different understanding of aesthetics, though. No worship of youth and Hollywoodisation (the blank face that expresses everything and nothing)
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bloggerclarissa: “I, however, have the face of a little innocent angel which is very annoying because that’s not how I feel inside.”
I can empathize because that’s how it used to be with me, too.
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I loathe schemers and manipulators. I also don’t cope well with stress. Luckily I have a job where there is no point scheming because there is nothing to scheme for, and I have very little stress as a result.
I would hate to have to stoop so low as to scheme and plot to stop myself being abused (professionally). Basically, I feel for your situation.
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Thank you, Sarah! I so hate this kind of petty scheming. I prefer to discuss everything openly and directly with people. This is truly the best strategy, in my mind. But people don;t respond to it as well as I would like them to.
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I don’t think you’re a dupe at all, all you really need is to become more independent, and I might be able to help…
As it turns out I work part time for the Cameroonian customs department. Last year we collected well in excess of our quotas and would very much like to move this (US $56.47, that is fifty-six dollars and forty-seven cents US) to a bank in the US. But since I’m unable to open an account there perhaps you would be able to open an account that we could deposit the money into. For your help you would receive 10 (ten) person of the money deposited, that is US $ 5.65! I wait on your urgent response!
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Given where I come from, this kind of intrigue I’m very familiar with. 🙂
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“I’m a simpleton and a dupe.”
No you’re not. You’re Asperger’s.
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I know. I live in a world of my own and this is what happens.
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Asperger’s Syndrome is not needed to cause this situation. All you have to do is assume other people are not so insecure that they cannot discuss things openly. I am sure I am neurotypical and I make this mistake all the time. Also there is something about Spanish departments and Dixieland, which southern Illinois is practically in. Too many people have only ever lived under really authoritarian governments, and they imagine you need all sorts of factions and intrigue, because the real meeting will be a charade of democratic discussion and the actual decisions will be made outside it.
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“Too many people have only ever lived under really authoritarian governments, and they imagine you need all sorts of factions and intrigue, because the real meeting will be a charade of democratic discussion and the actual decisions will be made outside it.”
– Gosh, I so hoped we would avoid the curse of intrigue and warring factions. At our department, we had had a very long and painful intrigue that lasted for 15 years but it ended right before I came. I hoped that people were so worn out by it that they would dread a repetition.
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“Asperger’s Syndrome is not needed to cause this situation.”
No it isn’t. But Asperger people tend to be particularly vulnerable to this sort of thing.
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This is true. One can’t read these subtle cues that something is wrong, so it is easy to get duped and used.
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I am sure they are worn out and that they feel dread, but that they are also so traumatized and emotionally deformed by it (for whatever the area of conflict is, not for their entire lives) that they are still twitching in pain and still have strange reactions and reflexes. I myself make assumptions about how things are going to be, which are based on the past and not the present.
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I just want to be left out of it, you know? I want to come to work, do my job, and go home. I don;t want to get involved in any unpleasantness and wars of wounded egos.
Language wars are, indeed, brutal. I never see this drama developing around literature courses. It’s always language for some reason.
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…because it is multi-section, multi-term and not free standing, and because people with a huge variety of different professional agendas, backgrounds, and levels of preparation are involved.
The people who teach the lit classes, whatever their differences, are a more homogeneous group in terms of preparation and general professional agenda, and the courses are more free-standing.
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“…because it is multi-section, multi-term and not free standing, and because people with a huge variety of different professional agendas, backgrounds, and levels of preparation are involved.”
– Yes. Yes. All true. Since everybody has to use the same textbook in all sections, the degree of drama that is created around the textbook selection is extreme. I told people that I will use absolutely any textbook they choose and removed myself from the discussion. The issue is just not worth all the unpleasantness. I barely use any textbook in class anyways because I have my own original activities.
People also tried giving me a syllabus I’m supposed to use and I pretended to accept it. But of course I just threw it away and use my own syllabus. If anybody tries to object, I will tell them that I’m only prepared to discuss my academic freedom in the Dean’s office and nowhere else.
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Also: if any textbook representatives are involved in this, they will do what they can to stir up strife.
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There is no politics like Church politics, and yes, southern Illinois is conservative Southern Baptist country (see Greenville College) as well as conservative Catholic and Conservative Lutheran.
I am no good at politics either.
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Thank God I at least don;t go to church and am spared that particular kind of craziness.
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This is very interesting and true, and I have been told it is a reason to have your kids spend at least some time in church, as preparation for dealing with other people who have done that, and so as to be able to understand, at work, the operations of these people skilled in church politics.
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“I will tell them that I’m only prepared to discuss my academic freedom in the Dean’s office and nowhere else.”
Well, our dean has come down, we have to all do the same thing, so we have to devise it and then stick to it.
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Dear Clarissa you are not a simpleton and/or a dupe! You are an intelligent, forthright woman who creates a magnificent blog. You just doesn’t get devious, manipulative people. Nor do I. Nor do many of us. That’s their problem, why should it be ours?! x
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Oh, thank you! This is so kind. You brightened up my long and difficult day.
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