Teaching

I'm teaching a course called "Text over Time", which is a serious sounding name for introduction to literature. This week was poetry - next week Jane Austen. Anyway, I like teaching. A lot. Don't know how that happened. God knows I hated high school. I didn't like uni until I dropped out of my mathematics degree, hitched a lift to Perth with a bunch of communists, nearly died a number of times on the Nullabor, arrived at a run-down Mt Lawley house at six in the morning occupied by a stoner hospital orderly, and enrolled in a good old arts degree at Murdoch Uni. Life takes funny paths sometimes. Perth - they were beautiful years.

Anyway, teaching: it's like performing. You live in a state of heightened awareness. You have to try to constantly read the class, make sure everyone's involved, try to moderate discussion, direct it into productive channels. As a result it's also exhausting. For me, anyway. That's where I am tonight: tiredville. I've got sixty five first-year students. I might stay tired. (: