secondhand_stress epitome of incomprehensibility It's my second week of Tuesday_Thursday being classful. The second week of heavy admin work for the tutoring centre: full days on Monday and Wednesday, snatched hours between classes elsewhere. Friday I go to the long class that I'm a TA for: so-ci-o-lin-guis-tics. Even the name is long. Anyway, it seems I'm the go-to admin sub for boss B., who's mellowed his controlling ways while I've become less prickly-sensitive (I hope). He needs me there, now that K. had to leave because of work permit issues. On my side, I have reasons for saving up money. And the office is close to Concordia. And he's less bossy when he's bossing me long-distancely, from Spain and then Portugal (he'll be back Thursday). So most of the work is okay, but secondhand stress is exhausting me. But I'm lucky. It's my grade 11 tutoring student and her mother who've been having a rough time. The mom has been calling me over and over to discuss schedules and vent her worries about her daughter, who was sitting in her room in the dark and refusing to go to school. She's uncharacteristically behind in her classes, her boyfriend just moved away, her grandmother is in the hospital, and she had a confidence-shattering fight with a school friend. I listen to all this, try to form supportive words, to be firm and reassuring. But it's hard when the girl's schedule is a tangle, when the woman gives inconsistent instructions ("Perhaps I was wrong to push her to do tutoring every day" and then "But why didn't you schedule a class for her this Wednesday??") and when I can't do anything about the non-class stuff but sympathize. I think the kid's depressed. I think the school should come to some sort of deferred-work agreement instead of being all snooty-snobbish. Yes, they can tell her she needs to take control of her own situation, but why not give her some space to do that, instead of forcing her to Show Up or Get Out? She's just sixteen here! She's in a crisis situation! Maybe not a life-threatening one, but a crisis nonetheless. Fuck it, universities are more accommodating. I'm her English tutor on Tuesdays and she didn't show up. That gave me a window of time to blather, but now that I'm off my caffeine-and-random-memories high, worries about her are returning. Yesterday over lunch, I was reading A_Woman_in_Berlin for my German literature class (in English). At a certain point I stopped, weary, because the scenes were frightening. What it's about: near the end of World War 2, a journalist is sheltering from bombs and then invasion. Too_much_war. And I knew she was going to talk about being raped because the intro said that, but I didn't feel like reading it right then. I don't want to be a wimp or shy away from content that's only second-handedly unpleasant, but too much of that stuff is wearying. So I want to take it in smaller portions - shorter phone conversations, fewer pages. At least I have more of choice than L. and her mom. Or people in wartimes, war-places. 230117 ... epitome of incomprehensibility She seems to be doing better, her mom reports - rallied and finished an application (her mom helping), stayed up until 2 doing homework. Immoderate, but maybe needed. And it wasn't just a one-time energy blast: she's doing the daily plodding of classes, appointments, her online tutoring. Her mom thinks the tutoring helps structure her week and provide some outside interaction. I'm glad it's not just another stressor, that the centre is taking advantage of their precarious situation. Someone could also take this as an overachieving parent pushing their kid too hard and the kid rebelling, but it seems more complicated than that. They're both ambitious and scatterbrained, smart and anxious. I don't know much about the father, except he's where L. gets her French. I'm jealous of her balanced bilingualism, even as I wish her better balance with...well, all the rest. It's not easy, but maybe at my age it's a little easier. 230121 ... e_o_i I don't know if reading things in a book really counts as "secondhand stress." I never know where to put things. But, to make connections - I WILL be a_woman_in_Berlin in a few weeks, if all goes well, and that reminded me of something unpleasant-to-me-but-not-specifically-designed-to-torture-me that I found out yesterday. Except...I'm clearly in too avoidant a mood to discuss this, because in my first draft I appended to "a_woman_in_Berlin" - "The prospect of me being anything other than a woman is quite miniscule. (Sis is cis, 'sup.)" 'Sup indeed. 'SUP. 230122 what's it to you? who go blather from