dabroots

I’m putting together a course plan for a section of English Composition at a campus that uses a textbook that’s not the same text I’ve used at other campuses. It’s a pretty good anthology, with not such a predictable array of authors, and I’ve been marking selections with index cards. I bought a pack on a whim a few weeks ago at my neighborhood Giant Eagle supermarket, my first such pack in years. In college and grad school, I used hundreds for research papers, but they have fallen out of use, for the most part. Although they can get lost, there’s something about the tactile realness of them that I find comforting. 

That was yesterday morning.  Right around the time I finished that course plan and had attached it to an email  that I sent off to the college print shop, I received an email from the department chair that the course was canceled, but asked if I could teach the same course at another location as an evening class, rather than the Tuesday/Thursday morning class for which I’d been hired.  Okay, so I’ll do that, but it means re-writing the schedule to cram two ninety-minute class meetings into one three-hour meeting.  At least this evening class doesn’t start until the last week of the month, so I can relax. 

My female students seem intent on giving me details of their health issues. Last week, one opened her mouth to show me the impacted wisdom teeth scheduled to be cut out on the next day of class.   I pointed out that I had the same problem some years ago and urged her to accept any painkillers offered by the oral surgeon, but to not ask for more.  Male students, on the other hand, seem intent on showing me papers about upcoming court appearances. 

There’s a difference between coming down on someone and going down on someone. It’s important to remember the difference when I read a reference to someone doing either, and to resist the urge to say anything if I at first misread such a reference. 

For a video featuring the folksy song “Fare Thee Well, Enniskillen,” about my ancestral village in Ireland, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlSUtiKCwNs&feature=youtu.be  With touristy shots of buildings, bridges, etc. as backdrop, you’ll see a woman doing a very athletic dance in the foreground and toward the end, another woman (I think it’s a different woman) engaging in some kind of writhing-around, sitting-down movement that includes showing her bare ass. Like I say, very odd.