Return of the Teacher

2010.09.07
266 Days Remaining

1. Today is the 2nd day of the semester for me here at Baskerville College (go hounds!).* The first day went completely fine, but it's very hard to get a read on one's students on the first day, because most of it is devoted to what I think of as bookkeeping: going over the syllabus, answering introductory questions about due dates, etc. This semester I'm teaching three classes, two of them are completely new for me (part of my contract this year is teaching in lieu of someone on medical leave and another someone on administrative leave). So I actually arrived at the classrooms today with a small degree of trepidation, wondering what it would be like to work with these students on these topics (philosophy of religion, native american religions, and "love, death & desire" - really a cultural/intellectual history course). The long and short of it, so far, is that it seems to be fine. I was very happy with the responsiveness of the students in the first two courses (PoR & L,D & D), and the 3rd ran a bit aground due to the continuing overheating of the classroom (though it was not so bad as last Thursday, when we fled outside to the "green" in order to survive). The students seem engaged, overall, and positively disposed, which last one maybe shouldn't matter but really, really does.

2. Something that I suspected would happen has already begun, now that I'm back on campus: people are asking questions whose answers necessitate some public disclosure of my divorce. It's mostly poor, innocent students who say things like, "how are your dog and cats?" or "what is your wife doing this semester?" I've tried to be gentle about it, and they're often adorably embarrassed (they mean well). I had actually wondered if anyone would ask about my not wearing a wedding ring anymore, as I've seen a few people stare at my hands in classes, but if they were, in fact, noticing the missing ring, they also probably figured that this was not something to ask about. I made this whole thing possible over the past 3 years by not refraining from mentioning details of my private life (especially the various exploits and adventures of/with the pets). Today, that comes home to roost.

3. I've also begun discussing possible alternative career paths with some of the other professors. So far the suggestions oscillate between some sort of consulting and circling back to the professoriate. This is interesting: even the folks who start off strongly supportive of finding an alternative path, if given enough time to expound, wind up back at being a professor. They seem to do this without realizing it. I'm not sure if this is because "professor" is their default career goal, or if they don't have a lot of practical exposure to alternatives, or because they can't imagine me doing something else (I'll assume, if it's the last, that they mean this in a flattering fashion). My list of possible careers gleaned so far is:

a. Political speech writer
b. Educational consultant
c. State Department analyst
d. Religion consultant (for some reason, whenever I think of how this one would work, my internal monologue sounds like Jackie Mason: "Wvat? You want to talk about religion? Wvat are ya doing? I'll tell ya something about religion..." It's functionally indistinguishable from the blue anteater in old Pink Panther cartoons)
e. Popular-audience religion book(s) author (this is harder to do than it may sound)
f. God-king (that's really my own suggestion, but I thought I'd give it a shout out)
g. Grant proposal manager for the public sector (seemed kind of random to me, but it was offered in a spirit of friendship and encouragement).
h. Professor (see, I told you)

4. Tonight my friend Octavian** is arriving for a business meeting tomorrow (conveniently, his company maintains a plant in this town, though he lives in NYC). I'm picking him up at 909pm, and we're going to a late dinner. This will be good, as my social life so far up here has consisted of me watching movies streamed on Netflix, and talking back to them. On the general topic of visiting, I'm very much looking forward to going back to Delaware in a week and a half. The Brandywine Arts Festival is this weekend, but I don't get paid until next Wednesday, so here I stay until that weekend over there. BTW, I love italics.

5. Not much else going on; right now I'm waiting to pick up Octavian, and killing time in the computer lab. No essays to grade yet, and after 3 courses in quick succession, I don't really feel like doing a whole lot of work. I watched the final ten minutes of I Love You, Man, here in the computer lab, because the RedBox disc I rented was scratched, and they had no more for exchange. Instead, I had to order it through Netflix, and it arrived today. But now, tragically, I have nothing else to watch. The horror.

6. Anyway, good night, all.

*Totally made up that name, btw.

**I've decided there will be a system to the pseudonyms I pick, but I'm not saying what it is.