Friday, February 01, 2008

I begin to worry

Only four weeks or so in to the semester, & for some reason the classes are already showing signs of mid-semester fatigue. Me too, maybe. The Biography seminar last night – Johnson's life of Milton, Rambler #60, Idler #84 – left me weary: I had things to say (rarely at a loss for words, even if they don't happen to be relevant ones); the guy presenting on Johnson had lots to say; everybody else was in a thoughtful listening mode. Which I'm hard put to interpret: we haven't done the reading? we've done the reading but found it boring as hell? where's the beef?

But a bit of fun: visited a colleague's class as show 'n' tell display: Actual Living Poet – read his pomes & ask him questions about 'em. My fave the old chestnut, "Do you write with a pencil or a pen or on a word processor?" No, I write with my hearrrrt.

5 comments:

Emily said...

My students are showing the fatigue too. (So am I, but for reasons other than teaching responsibilities).

I wonder if the shortness of the winter break has something to do with it -- the students had very little time to recover from fall, and I certainly had almost no time to recover, with trips to MO for graduation and Chicago for MLA.

Bradley said...

Yeah, I had a ton of absences yesterday, too. It feels way too soon-- not only because it's only week four, but also because many of these students also had MLK Day off and got to miss class for the presidential debate. Maybe there's something in the water...

Ed Baker said...

my best guess is that "they" are worried about
jobs/debt after graduating brings on "the Funk"
with few skills (like fixing a leaky faucet)

depression seems to be the norm... just so many "jobs" out-there teaching Creative
Writing 101..

..now going all the way down into 3 rd grade...

E. M. Selinger said...

Maybe they were listening, thoughtfully?

Post-election letdown? (I've noticed that every time Clinton claims a victory, we get a blast of cold here in Chicago. When Obama wins, it thaws, Father Christmas appears, and Mr. Tumnus stirs from stony silence.)

Sounds like a birthday part or two is in order! Give the girls my love--

E

Su said...

A little something that might cheer (u) up (for about 5 seconds or so): Brent Cunningham with SPD chose YOUR book for the off-to-AWP-in-flight read, and posted such in a posting on the blog:

http://awplive.blogspot.com/2008/01/tue-jan-29-in-flight.html