Tired of this.

Exhausted. I can't seem to be able to fall asleep anymore (even though I've been waking up at around 7 am in the last couple of days). Over-anxious about my MRP and feeling unable to bring myself to do the work that I need to get done (because I feel overwhelmed and distracted). Sigh. All I do is go through the points and potential arguments in my head (which perhaps, semi counts as work) and thinking about the other articles or books that I need to read (and then feel even more overwhelmed). It's kind of debilitating and I often end up just putting everything off for an extra day... and then another. I know that I somehow need to work through my anxiety over it, but how is the problem. It makes me sad because I feel like I'm not cut out for this anymore, but I know if I could just focus,  I could write great things.

On another side of things, I feel like I'm going through another emotionally draining process in which I have to confront a colleague's racist behaviour. Basically, what happened was that a student approached me and told me that her friend wanted to switch into my seminar because the TA, among other things, would single out women of colour to speak about issues pertaining to race in the course. She felt super uncomfortable watching this behaviour but didn't feel like she had the right to file a complaint because she was a witness to this happening (and is a white woman). I ended up sending an e-mail to the prof, but, because I heard from another student that this student said something, and because she didn't feel comfortable addressing the situation but used another excuse to leave the seminar, the complaint wasn't taken as seriously as perhaps needed. So, I ended up talking to the student and having the situation contextualized a bit more and realized that it was the same woman who once told people to "jump like Jamaicans" in a seminar presentation, and, as we were talking about racialized stereotypes in Disney one time, said, "yeah, in the movie, Up, there's like this kid who I think is Oriental... What do you think, Cera?" In some ways, I felt super awkward about coming to the prof again because it puts me in an extremely vulnerable position to go to a white male boss (though, I know he tries really hard and is super easy to talk to), and put myself in a position where I could potentially be invalidated and brushed off as oversensitive (which, has happened several times over the course of my years being a student so allowing myself to break the silence is still a huge thing for me despite my critical race and anti-oppression training and huge leaps and bounds that I've made to start speaking up). But, knowing that I've been in that place and knowing that if I were one of those first year POC students, I wouldn't speak up either, I felt compelled to go talk to him about it. And despite what people may think, I really appreciate when white students (who have privilege) take note and speak out against oppression (even when it doesn't affect them). It shouldn't always be the POC students brining these things up (especially when they've been constantly invalidated), so I'm glad she noticed it and spoke to someone about it. So, I explained this all to the Prof and he was very sympathetic and concerned, but the problem is dealing with it in an effective way. That means that I ended up volunteering to meet with him and the student to brainstorm solutions with him (which, takes extra time and an emotional toll on me).

When things like this get emotionally taxing, and when I notice the strain that it puts on Profs of colour (who often end up being the ones to deal with racism, or comfort students of colour), I get frustrated knowing that I wouldn't have to be constantly dealing with this if I were white.