So at my session today, I was able to explain to Nancy some good that has happened over the past few days - my asking roommate M about some house-related things, and my professor in my advanced research seminar class being kind of awesome.

But also the bad, which has been kind of piling on.

First about roommate B and his girlfriend, and how I'm feeling very left out and whatnot, and again it was suggested that I speak with him about stuff, because he might not realize that he's been basically absent in my point of view and that I'm feeling this way.  It's just tricky with new relationship-type stuff.

And then, and maybe even more importantly since I've come into some new information, is the miserable state of our department at the moment.  There is so much high school bullshit happening that I don't even know where to start.  When a friend of mine - who has been basically ostracized within the department for what I now understand are dumb communication errors - starts crying upon seeing me, not only because I'm personally back, but also because she's just so relieved to have someone who is her friend and who won't make her feel unsafe...that's all sorts of fucked up.

I've been out of the loop when it comes to the drama within our department, but I was able to finally hear her side of a story and now I'm more aware of the miscommunication and the mob mentality which followed and how bullshit it is.  And it just...angers me and fuels my cynicism - we're supposed to be academics and yet we fall into the same dumb tropes as, say, the fucking Tea Party: we don't like what you're doing/don't like that you disagree with us, and we disapprove of whom you've chosen to become friends with, so fuck you and your children and your children's children.  Without listening to the other side.  It's even worse because we should know better.   

Between what has been going on within the grad students and what has gone on among the professors, I just have little faith in the department as a whole.  When will they all decide to turn on someone else?  For what reason?  I don't really trust a lot of the professors anymore, given some of the shady shit they've pulled - the ones I do trust I can't really work with as an Americanist, since they're basically all Comparative people.  And now I can't trust the grad students because of this mob mentality shit which has deeply hurt a friend of mine who dared to disagree with the majority (and even that is kind of up for debate, since again, miscommunication).

They all also accused her of something that she didn't do, and instead of asking her - like I did - they just continue assuming behind her back and I trust her to tell me the truth so if she told me she didn't then she fucking didn't and please stop this fucking witchhunt.  I wish I said something a month ago, but I didn't know what to do and I was stupidly afraid of speaking up (probably due to said mob mentality) even when I should have and that was me being a bad friend but I'm done with that now, after seeing how all of this has affected her.

I won't go on a white-knighting crusade, but I will at least try to speak up if I hear bullshit now.

And hopefully I can act as a shield for her, in some way.  Maybe just by being around, I can help her not feel so fucking helpless and alone.

I know what that is like (less due to bullying and more due to my own depression, but still), and I never want someone else - who is an awesome person who works hard and is super fucking nice and actually acts like the adult she is - to feel like that.