(UC Sunnydale) Xander...
It grieves me to write of how used to being disappointed by Buffy and her friends I am becoming. I was even rather coming to enjoy the time I spent with Xander Harris, for the gods' sake.
He needed to learn to control what's been happening; I have the knowledge and the interest in teaching what I know. What good is knowledge if it just sits on a shelf, whether it's inside a book on a book case, or inside my own head? I spent most of my life learning so that I could impart what I knew, not just so I could say that I knew it. I have to admit I had serious doubts about whether Xander had the fortitude to stick with something as intellectually rigourous as the techniques I was trying to teach him. His academic record could charitably be described as 'abysmal.'
Xander surprised me very pleasantly, at first. I supposed that in his case, necessity could be the mother of persistence, as well as invention. Then, some time shortly after the last meeting of what he used to call the 'Scooby gang' (after some animated canine, I have been reliably informed), he stopped coming over. He stopped taking my calls.
I worry that Xander's rapid progress has made him overconfident in his own ability to handle the changes he's been going through. What he knows at present is really little more than a stop-gap. I ought to know. I was the one who looked at the problem, and crudely cobbled something together with the fastest possible results in mind, so that his telepathic abilities wouldn't drive him mad. Xander hasn't finished learning. He's hardly even begun.
I certainly can't think of any other logical reason for him to have become so lax of late. Perhaps he's currently uncommunicative because he realises his error, but doesn't quite know how to correct it. He did make such a good start of it.
In some ways, graduating from high school, Xander has begun to emerge like a moth from its chrysalis. He knows himself well enough to realise in spite of the current American mania for sending students who are thoroughly unprepared and thoroughly unsuited for college to university any way that he would be better off without that disheartening experience. I can respect that kind of self-knowledge... that's something no one can ever be taught in a classroom, and the beginning of real wisdom.
Good Lord, did I really just write that?
Yes, I suppose I did. Perhaps I was the one expecting too much of him, because Buffy has been so distant and disappointing to me of late...
Maybe all Xander ever wanted was just enough knowledge to get by. That would seem the more typically American attitude to take. I still need things, and people, to believe in, too. That never changes. If it does... one needn't look any further than Ethan Rayne to see the results of being the centre and sole object of one's own universe, and I've been unpleasantly reminded of that (and him) all too often, of late.
I know Xander's supposed to be at work today, so I think I'll take a walk down to his place of employment, the Espresso Pump. I haven't been going out very much lately. At all. Come to think of it, I've hardly left the house since I found out Ethan is back in Sunnydale because I can't bear the thought of running into him. But dammit, I will not allow him to make me make myself an agoraphobe.
The trip to the Espresso Pump makes sense: if I could only talk to Xander for a few minutes, I could let him know I understand the impulse to "slack off" (as I believe the current terminology would have it), that I'm not angry, or upset, and I would like to continue to work with him. Maybe this time I'll be able to keep the growing silence at bay. It's beginning to deafen me.
(written on the same page, in a more hurried hand, some time after the beginning of this entry)
Xander is described by his employer as 'the most reliable new hire' he's made in quite some time, and somehow this did not surprise me. That he would be absent without even bothering to call in, does. And this is the second day in a row he has done so. He previously accounted for all his absences, which are described by his employer as 'infrequent.' (Again, far better than Xander's academic record.)
Something is desperately wrong here. If Xander can bring doughnuts to the Apocalypse, it certainly can't be too onerous for him to pick up a telephone if he's not coming in to work that day. I need to get in touch with Buffy, and Willow, at the very least. Track them down, if necessary. They're far more Xander's family than his parents, who I shan't waste my time calling. Dammit, if anything happens to him because they prefer avoiding me these days, let it be on their heads. I'm going to do everything I can.
He needed to learn to control what's been happening; I have the knowledge and the interest in teaching what I know. What good is knowledge if it just sits on a shelf, whether it's inside a book on a book case, or inside my own head? I spent most of my life learning so that I could impart what I knew, not just so I could say that I knew it. I have to admit I had serious doubts about whether Xander had the fortitude to stick with something as intellectually rigourous as the techniques I was trying to teach him. His academic record could charitably be described as 'abysmal.'
Xander surprised me very pleasantly, at first. I supposed that in his case, necessity could be the mother of persistence, as well as invention. Then, some time shortly after the last meeting of what he used to call the 'Scooby gang' (after some animated canine, I have been reliably informed), he stopped coming over. He stopped taking my calls.
I worry that Xander's rapid progress has made him overconfident in his own ability to handle the changes he's been going through. What he knows at present is really little more than a stop-gap. I ought to know. I was the one who looked at the problem, and crudely cobbled something together with the fastest possible results in mind, so that his telepathic abilities wouldn't drive him mad. Xander hasn't finished learning. He's hardly even begun.
I certainly can't think of any other logical reason for him to have become so lax of late. Perhaps he's currently uncommunicative because he realises his error, but doesn't quite know how to correct it. He did make such a good start of it.
In some ways, graduating from high school, Xander has begun to emerge like a moth from its chrysalis. He knows himself well enough to realise in spite of the current American mania for sending students who are thoroughly unprepared and thoroughly unsuited for college to university any way that he would be better off without that disheartening experience. I can respect that kind of self-knowledge... that's something no one can ever be taught in a classroom, and the beginning of real wisdom.
Good Lord, did I really just write that?
Yes, I suppose I did. Perhaps I was the one expecting too much of him, because Buffy has been so distant and disappointing to me of late...
Maybe all Xander ever wanted was just enough knowledge to get by. That would seem the more typically American attitude to take. I still need things, and people, to believe in, too. That never changes. If it does... one needn't look any further than Ethan Rayne to see the results of being the centre and sole object of one's own universe, and I've been unpleasantly reminded of that (and him) all too often, of late.
I know Xander's supposed to be at work today, so I think I'll take a walk down to his place of employment, the Espresso Pump. I haven't been going out very much lately. At all. Come to think of it, I've hardly left the house since I found out Ethan is back in Sunnydale because I can't bear the thought of running into him. But dammit, I will not allow him to make me make myself an agoraphobe.
The trip to the Espresso Pump makes sense: if I could only talk to Xander for a few minutes, I could let him know I understand the impulse to "slack off" (as I believe the current terminology would have it), that I'm not angry, or upset, and I would like to continue to work with him. Maybe this time I'll be able to keep the growing silence at bay. It's beginning to deafen me.
(written on the same page, in a more hurried hand, some time after the beginning of this entry)
Xander is described by his employer as 'the most reliable new hire' he's made in quite some time, and somehow this did not surprise me. That he would be absent without even bothering to call in, does. And this is the second day in a row he has done so. He previously accounted for all his absences, which are described by his employer as 'infrequent.' (Again, far better than Xander's academic record.)
Something is desperately wrong here. If Xander can bring doughnuts to the Apocalypse, it certainly can't be too onerous for him to pick up a telephone if he's not coming in to work that day. I need to get in touch with Buffy, and Willow, at the very least. Track them down, if necessary. They're far more Xander's family than his parents, who I shan't waste my time calling. Dammit, if anything happens to him because they prefer avoiding me these days, let it be on their heads. I'm going to do everything I can.