Miscellany

In my attempt to become more Blake-ish, this year I'm starting my class with a (hopefully) thought-provoking quote. Today's was: "Much less evil would be done on earth if evil could not be done in the name of good" -- Marie Von Ebner Eschenbach. So I asked my students what they thought were some examples of evil done in the name of good. My first class I got some good responses. In my second class, the boys who are trying to convince me not to teach anymore mostly made fun of it. I understand the desire to be cool in front of your friends. I vaguely remember the horrors of high school. The emotional roller coaster, the hormonal disaster that is a teenager. I also remember the class ahead of mine being unduly cruel to their teachers. Their goal being to get Mrs. C to cry every day in class and to get Mr. H to resign. Both of them ended up only teaching for that one year. At the time I thought it was pretty awful of them, but also a little funny. Now I just want to cry for them and a little for me.

My first class generally goes well and the students pay attention and participate. Ideal. Second class, I have one student who continually roams the classroom. Every time he makes a comment he wants to do so from the front of the room. And he wants to make a lot of comments. I have other students who read very slowly on purpose. I'm not sure what the purpose is, other than to frustrate me and maybe get a few laughs(?). Honestly, I don't get it.

In other news, we're already planning our first homeleave. Planning on going to New York and seeing a show, eating Chipotle. (For those of you in Lincoln, you don't know how lucky you are to be in such close proximity to such deliciousness.) There will probably be cheesecake involved. We were thinking about spending the night, but the hostels (not hotels, hostels) start at $62 a night. To get a decent hotel room, with a shared bathroom, you'll pay more than $175 a night. That's a bit steep for us. Manhattan's quite pricy. In any case, I'm excited.

Also, in case you didn't know, the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden started yesterday. Go henceforth and eat lots of pasta.

Also, we're going on Senior Retreat at the end of this week... hoping for good times, hoping there is no hurricane coming through, like last year, and that it's not too hot.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of me in my office, five minutes ago. That's right, my computer takes pictures. Sucka.



Amen.