Monday, January 21, 2008

In search of lost time

One good thing about teaching a J-term class: all that hard work and high-energy teaching produced a sense of momentum that carried me through the first day of classes without the usual feeling of having been jerked out of a warm, cosy bed and plunked down all unprepared in front of a group of demanding and irrational students. No first-day-of class nightmares either, although I did have a really vivid dream about trying to potty-train a nine-month-old child while stuck in an airport terminal.

I taught my first class this morning in a room so cold I wanted to start a bonfire and my second class in a room so ugly that if I'd allowed my red blouse too close to that orange wall, the students' eyeballs would have exploded. I figured out the technology, distributed syllabi, answered questions, made students write, and went back to my office to read J-term portfolios, which, so far, are pretty good. In a day or two I'll put J-term behind me for good and get on to the business of teaching my current classes, which means I'll be too busy to notice that I seem to have misplaced winter break. By the time I figure out where it went, it'll be spring.

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