Sixty-One Days to Sweet Blessed Freedom...

I think I've found a satisfactory way to defeat first period. For fifty-eight minutes each day, I become a different person. The real me retreats deep inside myself and waits until the bell rings to come out. In this way I maintain my sanity and am able to teach the rest of the day with a semblance of enthusiasm.

Second period is definitely my best class. Today they were working on interpretive essays and I was wandering around helping individual students with the assignment. I discussed possible interpretations of "The Feather Pillow" by Horacio Quiroga with a few students at one point early in class. (For those interested in modern Gothic literature, this is a good starting point- the story is only about two pages long and has quite the shocking ending. But don't say I didn't warn you- you need Acrobat for it to open.

www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0568.pdf

I brought up the idea of misogyny in the text and the students argued over who would get to use it in their paper. Here's a hint- you know you should teach at least for a year when you get excited about the prospect of two students arguing over who will get to use the interpretation of misogyny in a text. It's sad, but true. (I'm not a big fan of misogyny, but as far as critical interpretations go, it's a heavy hitter.)

The funny moment of the day came when one of the two students asked in front of the class if "I could help with the mahogany assignment". The other student, without missing a beat, replied "You're doing an assignment on wood?"

So I think that my goal for the next sixty-one days will be to try and make the good moments stand out and the bad moments fade away. Come to think of it, maybe I should try that my entire life.

I've been thinking a lot about the phrase "Time flies when you're having fun". If that is true, then people have two choices in life- a short life they enjoy or a long life they wish was over.

I think I'll pick the former.