Re: Oxenfree II
Jan. 26th, 2024 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingDuring the summer after my first year of grad school, I got a scholarship to do one of the intensive language programs at Middlebury College in Vermont. This wasn’t my first choice of how to spend the summer, but I was dead broke and needed the scholarship money. If I didn’t live in those dorms, I would have been homeless.
This isn’t to say that I wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. I took the program seriously and worked hard. I fought to get myself placed in the top-level class, and I took full advantage of the chance to iron out the wrinkles left behind by a haphazard language education in college. I took copious notes, stayed up late into the night doing research for papers, and aced every exam. I did my best to support the instructors in class, as well as the lower-level students outside of class. This ended up being excellent experience for when I started teaching language myself; and like I said, I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Still, the program was intense. I handled this by not making it the entirety of my life.
All things considered, Vermont isn’t a bad place to be a broke grad student, and I spent a lot of time touching grass. I also touched dirt, corn, cheese, cows, donkeys, sheep, rabbits, bees, llamas, many dogs, and also a lot of trees. I ate organic farm-fresh salads and drank organic vineyard-fresh wine. I went fishing on Lake Champlain and read novels on the back porch of a forest cabin looking out over the mountains. I experimented with local Vermont beer while listening to live sets of cool indie bands at the tiny stages of cool indie coffee shops in Burlington. I was 23 years old and having a great time.
At the end of the program, when everyone was finally “allowed” to speak in English, I compared notes with the other students. Did they go up to Portland? Did they go down to Boston? Did they go hiking in New Hampshire? Did they try the restaurant in town with the celebrity chef? To my surprise, it turned out that no one went anywhere. They stayed in the dorms for the entire program.
Suddenly, the stranger aspects of their behavior became clear – the mood swings, the crying jags, the weight loss, the hair loss, the skin problems, the nervous habits, the way a lot of people stopped bathing, the way other people seemed to sleep all the time. Everyone in the program was depressed as hell, because they never fucking left.
And here’s the wildest thing:
During my exit interview, an assembly of instructors informed me that I made a perfect score on the final exam, which had never happened before. Despite this, they continued, they were disappointed in me, and they told me never to ask them for a recommendation letter. They had apparently watched me being tanned and glowing and healthy and happy, and they didn’t like it. If I wasn’t suffering, that meant I wasn’t working hard enough. I wasn’t taking the program seriously.
I was so violently shocked during that interview that I probably lost a year off the end of my life, but I still think about what a nice summer that was. I’m also still friends with many of the people I met during the program. I got what I came for, and I made a lot of warm and interesting memories in the process.
I’m still baffled by the mentality espoused by everyone in the program, though. If you’re so miserable and exhausted that you’re literally experiencing visions and time loops and tears in the fabric of reality... you can just leave?
This isn’t to say that I wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. I took the program seriously and worked hard. I fought to get myself placed in the top-level class, and I took full advantage of the chance to iron out the wrinkles left behind by a haphazard language education in college. I took copious notes, stayed up late into the night doing research for papers, and aced every exam. I did my best to support the instructors in class, as well as the lower-level students outside of class. This ended up being excellent experience for when I started teaching language myself; and like I said, I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Still, the program was intense. I handled this by not making it the entirety of my life.
All things considered, Vermont isn’t a bad place to be a broke grad student, and I spent a lot of time touching grass. I also touched dirt, corn, cheese, cows, donkeys, sheep, rabbits, bees, llamas, many dogs, and also a lot of trees. I ate organic farm-fresh salads and drank organic vineyard-fresh wine. I went fishing on Lake Champlain and read novels on the back porch of a forest cabin looking out over the mountains. I experimented with local Vermont beer while listening to live sets of cool indie bands at the tiny stages of cool indie coffee shops in Burlington. I was 23 years old and having a great time.
At the end of the program, when everyone was finally “allowed” to speak in English, I compared notes with the other students. Did they go up to Portland? Did they go down to Boston? Did they go hiking in New Hampshire? Did they try the restaurant in town with the celebrity chef? To my surprise, it turned out that no one went anywhere. They stayed in the dorms for the entire program.
Suddenly, the stranger aspects of their behavior became clear – the mood swings, the crying jags, the weight loss, the hair loss, the skin problems, the nervous habits, the way a lot of people stopped bathing, the way other people seemed to sleep all the time. Everyone in the program was depressed as hell, because they never fucking left.
And here’s the wildest thing:
During my exit interview, an assembly of instructors informed me that I made a perfect score on the final exam, which had never happened before. Despite this, they continued, they were disappointed in me, and they told me never to ask them for a recommendation letter. They had apparently watched me being tanned and glowing and healthy and happy, and they didn’t like it. If I wasn’t suffering, that meant I wasn’t working hard enough. I wasn’t taking the program seriously.
I was so violently shocked during that interview that I probably lost a year off the end of my life, but I still think about what a nice summer that was. I’m also still friends with many of the people I met during the program. I got what I came for, and I made a lot of warm and interesting memories in the process.
I’m still baffled by the mentality espoused by everyone in the program, though. If you’re so miserable and exhausted that you’re literally experiencing visions and time loops and tears in the fabric of reality... you can just leave?
no subject
Date: 2024-02-01 10:51 pm (UTC)People are so baffling.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-02 02:19 pm (UTC)I think I'm partially at fault in this situation for being clueless about the general culture of the program, and for not realizing how anomalous I must have seemed. It's easy to forget how young 23 actually is.
Still, I can't help but wonder if my performance would have met with the same resistance if I were male. Even in this Year of Our Lord 2024, I still regularly see male students being treated as "geniuses" and being excused for off-key behavior, so who knows.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-02 02:39 pm (UTC)you know the answer to your last paragraph, as do I, and all I can say is a very heartfelt "fuck."