Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Things that go "piph" in the night

I'm supposed to be sound asleep right now but my mind kept gnawing on an upcoming reading assignment in my Comedy class and I had a sudden epiphany about how to introduce an important concept, so of course I had to get up and write it down. 

This happens a lot--unexpected epiphanies disturbing my sleep. Just the other night I woke up in the middle of the night knowing how to present a particular concept in African-American Lit. But here's the thing: these late-night epiphanies are always in aid of literature classes and not freshman writing classes. Always.

So right now I ought to be getting a good solid chunk of sleep so I'll be prepared to teach my two freshman classes in the morning, but instead I'm obsessing over something I won't even need to think about until next week. My epiphanies clearly have no concern for my teaching schedule. Halfway through class I'll be struggling to make sense through a sleep-deprived fog and I'll just have to apologize to my poor suffering students. "Sorry," I'll say; "The epiphany ate my homework."

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