Personal Tutees and Suicide

I just heard that one of my friends personal tutees committed suicide. The worst fear of everyone personal tutor came through in this case. I have decided to track all my personal tutees who are AWOL and write to them tomorrow. This is partly an exercise in ass-covering, partly in assuaging guilt in advance and partly out of concern for my students. But, one thing we have to keep in mind that we have too little influence or involvement in these students' lives. Yes, shows of concern and kindness can help a mildly depressed student feel better. But, its not going to do much for a moderately or severely depressed student. We are not trained counsellors, and the most we can do to a distressed student who approaches us  is direct them towards someone else. We are the school's cynical attempt to show students that they care. But, all we can do is show compassion in such cases. And compassion is great, but I'm guessing it cannot help prevent suicide. Our students have whole lives outside the ambit of their university classrooms. Our students are enigmas to us. Our contact with them is minimal in terms of time and impact. Parents may lash out to us to assuage their own guilt, but that doesn't make us guilty. 

To be Guided or Not to Be Guided

 I am still trying to organize my trek to Nepal and one of the questions that I have worked myself into a tizzy about whether to go guided or unguided. I wouldn't have minded a guided group but it is seeming increasingly unlikely that I will be able to join a group. So, looks like its just going to be me and a guide. being with a guide has its obvious pros--don't have to worry about the route, logistics, etc, and I can focus on enjoying the mountains. I have been to Nepal before but I am not an experienced enough trekker to be able to do it unguided without confidence. However, being an introvert, the first question that came to my mind is what do I talk to him about for 8 plus hours a day for seven days? With a group, I could have relied on the more chatty members to engage with the guide for a bulk of the time. And walking alone in the mountains has its own charm. However, the law has changed in Nepal, so the routes along which you can go unguided are few and far between. And, I earn in pounds now, and while I am not a high earner by any stretch of imagination, I would probably be comfortably rich in Nepal. My right to wanderlust or to find myself doesn't come before the right of people in one of the poorest countries in the world to earn a livelihood. So, at the end of the day, its an easy decision. A guided trek it is. 

Another Blah Meet-Up

 This was last evening, but I was too tired to write about it yesterday. In a post I had written more than four years ago, I had talked about why I avoided pub socials, and this meet-up reminded me that I was write. In pub socials, you are stick with the people you are seated beside. If they bore you, excusing yourself and inserting yourself into another conversation takes a level of tact and effort that I struggle to muster,. So, I just sat there with my beer, waiting till it wouldn't feel to weird or rude to leave. Finding intelligent people who share your interests is not easy, and you are unlikely to find them in a random group of strangers. Similar sense of humour, life experiences, interests, you need something to keep the conversation going. Which is why I so miss the book club, even though I was the only bloke there for most of the meetings. But, one lives and learns. I now live in a house that I don't feel the need to escape from, so I can afford to be more selective in my choice of engagements. 

How Much To Prep for A Lecture.

 Tomorrow if the first of my final week of lecturing this semester. When I first started lecturing, I would practice my lectures to time. Now, I have started to explore spontaneity. I think in the process of writing, so maybe lecturing is similar. New ideas, new insights may hit me when I am in the act of lecturing. Or, so I hope. The truth is the students are uninterested and uninformed, and lecturing them is a drag. SO, its not just an experiment with spontaneity, it is also a lack of enthusiasm on my part. I started out with hopes of reworking my course material from last year, which I was not very happy with. I ended up barely reworking anything. This lack of enthusiasm for both teaching and research will pass. Or I will find something else or someone else to be excited about. How long can I go through life coasting?

Landlord Returns

 My landlord returns tomorrow, so I will have to adjust to sharing my living space with someone else. No more prancing around in my underwear or chucking stuff down the stairs to be picked up later. But, this house has plenty of room, and my landlord seems like a gentle and interesting chap. Living by myself has taken some getting used to. I remember in the early days how the thought of being at home for two days in a row was discomfiting. Not any more, so I wonder how I will feel to share my living space with someone else.  

Encounter Killings

 The trigger for my doom-scrolling today was news of a alleged gangster and former MP being gunned down while in a police custody. A few days earlier, his son had been killed in an encounter in the same god-forsaken state. I am aware how bad social media is for one's mental health. It informs you of everything wrong that is happening in the world, and the manner in which the information is conveyed is meant to arouse your passions. Social media is a great tool for activism, but if you are prone to cynicism and fatalism, then it can be very draining. I realise that life hasn't changed for my upper-middle-class bubble in India, apart from the worsening heat, pollution and traffic. And, it also true that when you are living in India, the chaos drowns out some of the bad news. I am also aware that fresh hells explode materialize in different parts of the world every day. People are killed, maimed, stricken by serious illness, and, if they survive their lives are irrevocably changed. But, I don't need to hear about all of them as callous as that sounds. Its perfectly possible to get worked up about the state of the world regularly without lifting a finger to do something about it. Either lift a finger or don't get worked up. I need to get better at moderating my consumption of news, which is no easy feat, given that I am news junkie. But, like with most things in life, practice helps. 

Grief Vs Adversity

As I was leaving today, I asked a colleague who is also in the job market if he was doing okay. He said he is fine and that these things don't affect him too much. He said that when he lost his mother more than 25 years ago, he realised that there could be no greater pain. Which got me thinking: does grief make you stronger? My experience with grief is limited. My two grandfather who were well into old age, and a close friend whom I hadn't seen in three years and was living in a different country. None of them were part of the tapestry of my daily life. Some day, if I live to a decent age, I will experience grief. but does, grief make you more resilient to future grief? I don't think so. You don't cope with it, you live with it. Maybe time dulls the initial sting, the gnawing pain but the loss remains forever. Do you learn from grief? I havve no clue.

Adversity, on the other hand, can toughen you up. It can teach you about yourself and the world, and how to cope with both. It can make you more tolerant or more proactive or both.