teaching week one: the horror, the horrror (pt. 1).

For those of you who are unaware, this semester is my first in the classroom.  I am Ms. Adams: the constructor of syllabi and dispenser of grading rubrics. I feel responsibility to 44 other souls (two sections of 22 students whose names I will never, ever get right) to whom I’ve become an intellectual parent. Suddenly I feel more relevant, more valuable. I see the world in a different light: the gentle luminsescence of sheer and complete terror.

Teaching on the college level has always been my career goal. For someone who gets their sense of worth from their work, this means I take teaching — along with writing — very seriously. My experience has been limited, but I’ve always enjoyed it when it comes my way. But this newest development isn’t subbing, it isn’t presenting, it isn’t assisting. It is straight-up teaching a college level course.  My program has exceptional preparation and help for incoming TA’s, especially in comparison with what I’ve heard from other schools. Still, when I stand at the podium, I become a rambling, mumbling, spazzy, spacey teacher lady.  Actual excerpts from my first week:

“I’m sorry…sometimes I just say things?” (Repeated three times in my first class)

Me: “Is [band x] anything like [band y]?” Student response: “No.” Me: “Cool.”

“I’m reasonable within reason.”

“I see you bought the new Coldplay album. That’s cool. I…am trying to come up with an anecdote for this and I can’t think of anything. People seem to like Coldplay. Oh, hey, have you ever seen Exras? Chris Martin was on that once. He was funny. There. Anecdote.”

“I, uh. Hm. Yeah. That’s funny. I, um. Yeah…yeah.” (Repeated daily at regular intervals.)

“Marx is a radical but he doesn’t want to throw that at his audience first thing. You know, it’s like, he’s all ‘Hey, proletariat! Know what sucks? Working in factories! Who else misses farming? We should kill the Czar!’” My paraphrase of the opening chapter of the Communist Manifesto was accompanied by what can only be described as my “dur-dur-dur” elbow dance. You know the one.

“[inaudible mumble]” My attempts to pronounce a third of my students’ names.

“So many of you are pre-med! But I guess everyone starts out as pre-med, huh?” Nervous laugh.

“Yes, Brandon.” Silence. “You’re Brandon right?” Silence. “Okay, sorry. Who are you?”

“Rhetoric is not only what you say but how you say it and saying in a way that communicates what you’re saying to other people. So, um, eloquence.”

I am Ms. Adams: the inscrutable. More to come and soon.

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just interesting.

Excerpt from electronic conversation:

Joe: So, what have you been listening to lately?
Me: Black Keys, Beach House, She & Him…
Joe: Duos.
Me: Weird. I’m listening to Mates of State right now.
Joe: I stopped trying to analyze this.
Me: I didn’t.

I have theories. They’ll stay my theories for now.

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this explains so much

My obsession with the Myers-Briggs personality inventory has been a long one. While rereading one summary of my personality type the other day, I came across this little nugget:

INFPs are quite disorganized. But when tasks at hand are important and best done in an organized way, INFPs strive to do so. Practicality is not a driving force for INFPs. Things that traditionally belong together may not be placed together because the INFP does not see it as necessary. They have trouble finishing what they start because of their perfectionist nature. When they do finish a project, they may not consider it done ‘for good.’ Projects can always be improved upon, revised, and reworked, and therefore INFPs find it hard to bring tasks to closure. Because they are able to visualize the finished product long before it is done, the actual completion is of less importance.

So, Baylor University Graduate School, if you have any further questions as to where my thesis is…well, there you have it.

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The Mechanic’s Wife

She’ll have to marry him now!

Petra is betrothed — to rich, eligible Sheikh Rashid. But she plans to ruin her reputation so Rashid won’t want her. Blaize, a fellow guest at her hotel, agrees to be Petra’s pretend lover — though soon he’s taken her virginity!

Then Petra makes a shocking discovery. Blaize is actually none other than the man she’s supposed to be marrying — Sheikh Rashid!

So reads the back cover of a Harlequin romance novel called The Sheikh’s Wife or The Sheikh’s Lover or Mr. Sheikh Goes to Washington or something like that. I can’t remember the title, but I wrote down the back copy as soon as I read it because, well, isn’t it obvious?

A few Wednesdays ago was one of the roughest days I’ve had in awhile. But it was also a reminder that I have some extraordinarily awesome friends, one of whom is Miss Lindsay Gafford. Lindsay, as a matter of practice, rummages through Goodwill’s bin of 99 cent romance novels to find the most ridiculous, repulsive, and sad of a patently ridiculous, repulsive, and sad genre.  Then she sits around and reads them to friends. Really, I can’t think of another form of entertainment where you get so much bang for your buck. “Bang for your buck…” I shall add that to my list of probable by-lines.

The Sheike’s On-Again, Off-Again Girlfriend doesn’t even have an author listed. It’s that sort of book. Since I’m in the market for a life’s calling, I decide I could write one of these romance novel things and pretty much did, all whilst walking around Target with LDG. I call it The Mechanic’s Mistress, and it goes a little something like this:

Will he get a peek under her hood? Or will their romance stall out?

Celeste is the daughter of wealthy and savage luxury car dealer.  Ryder is the a third generation honest and hard-working mechanic.  These star-crossed greasers passion for fast cars, clean burning fuel, and each other!

Pretty much it goes on to involve overuse of the words and phrases “chassis,” “driving stick,” “body work,” “humming [motor],” “revved up,” “pistons”…Surely you get the idea.

I was enjoying my averagely clever, filty self when suddenly I recalled something from my dark days of tending the fiction section of Barnes & Noble. Something I had worked long and hard (heehee) to forget:

Harlequin NASCAR.

That’s right. Combining not one but two of the lowest forms of American entertainment, Harlequin Nascar follows the Full Throttle adventures of Nascar drivers and the women who love them. The line includes such titles as Old Flame, New Sparks, Peak Performance, Out of Line, Hitting the Brakes…Again. I feel the picture is in HD.

The funny thing is I was actually disappointed that the romance novel had beaten me to the punch. For a moment I thought, “Perhaps, as an industry, the romance noveliers are aware of how ridiculous they are, how they’ve lowered the bar, how they manipulate the lonely, isolated, and disenfranchised.” Then I read the product description for Overheated:

Things Crystal Hayes could do without: her looks, men obsessed with her looks, and guys who think they’re God’s gift to the ladies. She’d rather be behind the wheel of a truck than navigating cheesy pickup lines. But when Crystal makes a delivery to a NASCAR event, she meets the one guy who could blow all her preconceptions away.…

All his life Larry Grosso has lived in the shadow of his well-known racing family—but it’s now time for him to take what he wants. And on the top of that list is Crystal—breathtaking, sweet…and twenty-two years younger. Their age difference is creating animosity within their families, and suddenly their romance is the talk of the entire NASCAR circuit!

I think I can find something else to do.

 

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I read this and in that moment decided I would and could finish my thesis.

marriedtothesea.com

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