People who have commented about the graduate program I attend often remark how alien it feels when you first experience a module. I think it could best be described as those movies or books you read in which the apprentice seeks a teacher to learn the secrets, mysteries, and inner workings of reality. Only instead of the lessons being held in a primitive hut, they are held in a hotel conference room on uncomfortable chairs, the teachers don't speak in riddles but they do ask a lot of questions (the teachers are trained therapists, after all) and there are 40 other apprentices just like you.

It struck me as I drove home after class today, that a majority of the reason why I feel confused and stressed and disoriented about a misunderstanding I had with two faculty members is that in this program it is part of the package deal to work conflicts with your instructor, who very well might illicit such a heated exchange! I don't think they they deliberately created the situation to test my skills, because that would be a major violation of the authenticity rule, yet a part of me does think that "What if they chose to handle this situation in the poorest way they know how just to see how I'd react?"

Am I being tested? I think so. They want to see if I measure up—how I come out in the wash. I find it very hard to believe that both faculty who have been instructing and working as therapists for 20 years would suddenly have no skills whatsoever about how to convey and express to me that I've done something "wrong" or to their disliking. These are people who are slick, know their shit and have demonstrated their finesse and skills to us numerous times during class.

It could very well be that they are just being human, not conducting themselves as the high-and-mighty instructors and therapists they portray. Yet this leaves me wondering, what is their authentic self? I have no idea.

All I know is that within the past 48 hrs I've had two faculty who have the power to deny me to continue in the program have words with me for a decision that I made and they are ready to make me walk the plank and beneath that plank is a swarm of blood thirtsty sharks.

For the curious, I decided that the best thing to do was to come home and conduct a wedding that was scheduled since Pooky had a situation come up that prevented him from performing the ceremony. My faculty says that I had agreed to attend all of the module and should not have left to keep my commitment with the couple—that my committment was with them (the school). It matters not to them that I already made up that portion of the curriculum and already received an AC regarding it, so it was a repeat.

I know that a failing grade can be changed to a passing grade if the student demonstrates they have mastered the material. I've never heard of it going the other way. This is the power that they are intimating to me that they have, at least insofar as, they are saying that I will need to somehow make up this missed day of classes. I fail to understand why when I already attended them.

See how this program is like being on a different planet? It's very alien indeed!