Over at Lingua Franca we have an article explaining the sudden popularity of the semicolon tattoo, which serves, apparently, as either a warning against attempting suicide or a celebration of having survived a suicide attempt--because a suicide occurs when a sentence isn't ready for a full stop.
And then over at Facebook we have pictures of one of my students getting a semicolon tattoo.
So what am I supposed to do with that?
Over here I have a rich delicious brownie. I know exactly what to do with that. (Someone ought to plaster the brownie package with semicolons.)
1 comment:
Um; yeah; hmmm. . . .definitely eat the brownie. I wouldn't mind one myself after reading that.
As far as the semicolon tattoo thing goes, it strikes me as both clever and well-intentioned, and it might well save lives; I'm all for all of the above. But it does create a permanent record of what might well (and might best) be a passing moment in time (then again, the scars from an actual suicide attempt, or from continued self-harm, can do the same). Like a lot of other things that may well pass with the end of the adolescent search for identity, I'm not sure memorializing the moment in ink is the best idea. I think I like the "it gets better" project more, perhaps because it's more forward-looking even than the rhetoric of continued sentences (which may be a bit undermined by the idea that one needs to be, and will permanently need to be, reminded to continue the sentence).
I guess I'm also wondering about the wisdom of having students as facebook friends, precisely because it can break down boundaries that are perhaps better maintained, and create such dilemmas. But, full disclosure: I've never had to decide, since none of my students have ever asked (they do try to connect on linked in, and I've decided not to do that, either. I'm neither their colleague nor their present or former employer, and, while I'm happy to write letters of recommendation, or serve as a reference, I'm not comfortable with endorsing vaguely-defined "skills" in an online platform).
The good news, I suppose, is that the student is showing every sign of *not* being a threat to self (at least not at the moment). And I'm just as glad to know what the tattoo means (while also sort of feeling that I'd rather not know, or not need to know, or something. Aargh.)
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