Mortaine’s Blog

If you still want to, you can ask me a question!

I guess not too many folks wanted to ask me much….

: What or Who do you believe in?
I believe in myself. Seriously, I believe in some core values that I can’t totally express right now, but which basically boil down to Because its the Right Thing To Do. Helping strangers. Caring for the environment, and people/animals that are not as strong as I am. I believe in being a champion, or in living my life the way I think a hero should live. I also believe in being a good friend, and in being honest– even honest about my own faults and shortcomings. I believe in the tenets of the American Constitution.

Spiritually, I am an atheist. I don’t believe in a higher power, at least not one higher than me and society (although I will acknowledge the possibility of higher alien lifeforms). That’s not me rebelling against an upbringing– it’s me embracing it. My grandfather was a staunch atheist who taught his kids and grandkids to question anything unproven and unprovable.

Pardon me while I segue into a discussion of something supernatural that I do believe in….

I believe in magic, but as a principle of science. I believe I am slightly precognitive in very limited ways. Occasionally you’ll see a precognition post in my journal of me trying to document something that I perceive as a potentially precognitive dream (like the SuperBowl). Unfortunately, most of my precog dreams are not something I notice until it’s too late (you have to report a precog dream before the thing happens, or it doesn’t really “count”). The two most traumatic experiences in my life were prefaced by a precognitive dream.

Almost every precog I know of (including myself) reported some sort of precognitive episode before 9/11.In my case, the dream was concurrent with the incident, which is unusual for me and may in fact have more to do with the collective human consciousness than with a precognition. One of my friends remarked that I might have heard the screaming on the television or something and it worked its way into my dream, and I pointed out that the TV was off. In my case, it would be more like hearing the screaming of people thousands of miles away.

The video tape of bin Laden discusses how operatives all over had had dreams about planes hitting a building for several weeks in advance of the attack.We have to suspect any such information, as it could be a code or message transmitted through the tape, or might have indicated the operatives’ prior knowledge (someone picking up on unspoken clues from those around them, for example– another instance of collective consciousness, but more direct).

Random number generators world-wide (working on an unrelated project) registered a “spike” in data for about 4 hours when the planes hit. The “spike” basically is from all of the random number generators coming up with generally the same number patterns at the same time, all over the world. The patterns are close enough to be more than the error range, but small enough to not constitute hard proof.

With that information, my own experience, and the reports from other precogs who have come forward (usually people who don’t need or want exposure, like me), I have to admit there is something we haven’t discovered yet about the world.

: What do you think the next meme will be you post?
Well, I already posted my Weatherpixie, and technically this is part II of the same meme. I tend to stay away from Quizilla quizzes, so most of my weird memes are things that I see on my friends’ pages. Perhaps my next one will be something I see on yours!

: Why are you not teaching now?
I was a TA for a year and a half at San Jose State University, teaching English 1A (for 2 semesters), then English 1B (1 semester). In March of 2001, my husband was laid off from his job, and we began our financial free-fall. I had 1 semester left, and decided to give it a go, finish my classes, and teach for a last semester before deciding what to do next.

Meanwhile, he decided to work on the Next Big Thing, and in August, 2001, he and some friends started a new business, Adult Video Nation. Starting an adult DVD shop in the fall turned out to be a good choice, as they grew nicely during the winter of 2001.

Meanwhile, 2001 was turning into the worst year ever. I’d been sick almost every month, landing in the ER in mid-summer because of a stomach thing (it took me about 2 months before I felt “normal” again). In the spring term, everything went wrong– I got sick a week before school started. My younger dog ate a bottle of pills during the second week of classes, causing me to miss a day of work, I got strep two weeks later, and my older dog died at the end of that month. It was not a good term.

Two and a half weeks into the Fall term, 4 planes were hijacked and I actually had to go in and teach on September 12. I was in shock and unable to really function for a couple of weeks, yet the semester still plugged forward, assignments were still due, students were still there.

I never felt like I ever caught up. I ended up handing in their grades on Christmas Eve, I was so late grading their papers. They deserved better, but so did I.

After the term ended, it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to financially support me teaching anymore. John wasn’t pulling a paycheck from work– in fact, he was investing our savings in it. I needed a job, and I didn’t want to freelance anymore. It’s too stressful, and I wanted a 9-to-5 commitment where I could get into a routine and just do it. I started looking at the beginning of January, and in March I was called in for my interviews.

There was a chance that this spring term could have had me teaching a science fiction literature course, which I helped develop, but budget cuts meant that only one section was offered, and it was taught by SJSU’s excellent tenured SF/F professor, Dr. Stork (who taught me Old English, by the way, and is a very wonderful person).

In a way, I could say that I’m not teaching because of finances and budget cuts. The reality is that I enjoy teaching, but I just can’t get enough of the good out of it. I think I could be happier training people, because the pay is better and the classes are shorter (days or weeks, not months). Also, Freshman Composition means reading and grading hundreds of essays each semester, which is very demanding and draining work. I found my writing skills suffered immensely when I was teaching, to the point where I would have to put away the essays for a week or two at a time, just so I could write my own graduate-level papers. I would love to teach the science fiction literature class, however, and hope the budget isn’t completely gutted for the fall term.