I could have brought all of them upon myself...

Yet, somehow... The worst is the punishment I deserve. The better is probably just par for the course. The best must have been an act of mercy.

No, actually I don't think it's too much of a stretch to interpret my grades as a metaphor for judgment of my moral being.

¿Estás alérgica a la realidad?/Are you allergic to reality?

Jacques Lacan: psicoanalista; reanimó el estudio del consciente de Freud; estudió cómo se establece la identidad - "The Mirror Stage as Formative...""¡ch-chu!" - el "yo" se forma como proceso externo; cuestiones de alteridad; importancia de la lengua..????? "¡ACHU! -perdón"; lo imaginario; lo Real - el simbólico no tiene aceso - se aproxima pero no llega..???"¡ACHU! ¡ACHU! ¡ACHU!- Ay, perdón" / Jacques Lacan: psychoanalyst; revitalized Freud's study of the consciousness; studied how identity is established - " "The Mirror Stage as Formative...""¡ch-chu!" - the "I" is formed by an external process; questions of otherness; importance of the language of the...???"¡ACHU! -perdón"; the imaginary; the Real - the symbolic does not have access to the real, it approaches it but doesn't get there...???"¡ACHU! ¡ACHU! ¡ACHU!- Ay, perdón"
The above is excerpted from the notes I took in Cultural Studies seminar yesterday. The gaps represent nasal distractions more than any difficulty I was having with the any of the critical theorists/philosophers, etc. to whom I've always been quite resistant and closed-minded. Profe. Robert opened the seminar with a brief recorrido of the French structuralists, post-structuralists, etc... beginning with Saussure and Levi-Strauss. In the middle of the Lacan description above, he interrupted himself in response to my sneezing fit, "Val, ¿estás alérgica a la realidad?" I tried to joke, but refrained from actually saying aloud that I actually did have a bit of an aversion to Theory. I kept my sinuses under control through Barthes, Althusser, Deleuze, Foucault and Kristeva.

Derrida or Dennis Hopper?


I tensed up a bit when it came to Derrida, but Robert's description was clear and I became fascinated with the idea of APORIA, or these sorts of holes in communication or anything, I guess, where language can't enter, so language rebels and produces things like binary oppositions. I was even beginning to see that Deconstruction in some ways was a productive thing. But as he began to explain the term differance any tentative understanding disappeared as my eyes and nose suddenly began to water - uncontrollably. It was as though my sinuses had sprung a leak and I had to get up and leave for a few minutes to get myself under control. I wonder what Freud or Lacan would make of that. And speaking of Lacan...below, in 1931. ¿Charol para la baba? ¿o para los mocos?

Is that cigar just a cigar?