Spectrum finally held their annual officer elections last night. If you're wondering why I didn't make mention of this fact earlier, it's because I didn't find out about them being held until about ten minutes before they actually took place. I was totally unprepared for the barrage of what happened, and before I knew it the President and the Vice President wound up switching positions, my candidacy for the Presidency being totally shot down. Given the actions of the President and the Vice President before and during the elections, there's no way this couldn't have been a setup.
I kept a brave face as I left the meeting and later as I was shopping for all the comfort food I've been devouring these past couple of hours, but since I've been home I've had these horrible crying jags as I've come to realize all my worst fears about what's been going on with Spectrum this past year and the people in the group and my relationships with them. All of the hard work I put into making Spectrum such a wonderful group last year has basically gone down the drain, and if things continue in their present state I doubt that Spectrum will even continue to exist at this time next year. Believe me, that is not a statement of ego on my part, that is a statement from the longest-standing member of Spectrum (by over one and a half years over anyone else) who has seen just what makes Spectrum great and what makes it wither.
In between drying my eyes, I drafted up a huge complaint to the Office of Student Ombuds detailing numerous instances in which the election violated Spectrum's laws, UT's laws, and just plain old fashioned common sense. Let's just say that the last time I did anything like this, I had Ted Turner's lawyers barking down my snorkel. I just e-mailed it out, and I'm hoping that speedy action will be taken upon it given how late we are in the semester. I may be heading to campus tomorrow afternoon for a poetry reading, so I'll try to stop in the Office of Student Ombuds before then and make sure the e-mail was received.
I know this is really drastic for me to do, but really I've got nothing to lose here. The (for now) incoming President clearly has issues with me, and I won't be comfortable going to Spectrum any more if she's in charge, and that would effectively destroy all my friendships in Spectrum. (Which were a huge part of the reason I came back to UT for my graduate work instead of getting my MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles.) I'm sure that I'm going to piss some people off and lose some friendships as a result of this complaint, but they're people who'll be out of my life if I didn't do anything and just left Spectrum, so I figure that this way at least I have a chance of saving some friendships.
There's more background I could go into to explain things, but honestly it's stuff that really shouldn't be made public. Just trust me when I say that I'm trying to do what's best for Spectrum at this point, and that the next couple of weeks, in addition to being hard on me because of all the papers I have to write, will be very hard on me personally. Any good vibes you all could send me would be greatly appreciated.