I always remember how much anxiety I would have in school when I wasn't fully prepared. Well, it's the same deal with work. Last week I felt fairly unprepared for class and not only were the days stressful, but I dreaded going into work in the first place. It surprises me how much one student can alter the dynamics in my class. Today one of my little "trouble makers" was in In-School Suspension all day for a fight he had on Friday. His absence combined with my detailed preparations resulted in a beautifully productive day and a blatant lack of instability. These are the days I imagined when I had decided to become a teacher. We are finishing up one of my all time favorite novels in class, "The Witches" by Roald Dahl. The kids have been into it the entire time and I am rewarding them by allowing them to watch the movie version on Friday and a small Halloween party.
Random thought of the day: I enjoy having a beard or at least some sort of facial hair.
I never particpated in the age old ritual of learning how to shave with a straight edge from my dad. I got the sex speech and the drug speech, but not the coming of age shaving lesson. It's not like I was eighteen when I went through puberty either. So alas, I never developed a true shaving regimen and eventually only chose to shave my facial hair when it became gaudy. My ex-girlfriend used to hate it when I didn't shave, and I can completely understand her reasons why, but I definitely look cooler when I've got the trimmed beard going on. I would fit right into an Amish community. When I was sixteen I had a pony tail. At nineteen, during my "fat" year, I had a ridiculous set of mutton chops. Both were situtations where I thought they were great styles and in retrospect wish that someone had told me how horrible I appeared. I guess we all have our awkward phases...I'm almost out of mine. Give me until I'm twenty five.
So I participated in some receational drug activities on Sunday for the first time in a month. My friend had just returned to Louisiana from a brief respite to Jamaica. The interesting thing was that for the first time in my life I realized that I have lost interest in the experience. It makes me feel sick and useless and I just don't see the point of it anymore. I was straight edge all through High School and had my diversion into the impurities in college. I never had seemed to escape it even afterwards when I moved to New Orleans. I mean, I took a break when I knew I needed to be drug tested, but after the test I came back crawling. I guess that has been one seriously positive consequence of Katrina. I should have been done with it a long time ago, but it's been a crutch for me in the past when emotions were sometimes too much to deal with and it was easier to just repress them and numb them. People can change. I strongly believe that. Now if I can just quit smoking cigarettes. Drinking is not really an issue because I really do not like drinking in the first place.
Onto another subject, I just purchased the new Ultimate edition of "Watchmen" by Alan Moore. It's an excellent graphic novel that's based on costumed vigilantes as they grow old. It's akin to the Disney movie the "Incredibles" but had the idea first. I actually wrote my senior thesis on the novel and dissected it from a post-modernist perspective. Post-modernism isn't for everyone, but I got hooked my junior year at Vassar when I took a seminar on it with Michael Joyce. Michael was a pioneer in Hypertext. Not to trivialize hypertext, but it's basically a choose your own adventure novel on the computer that you navigate through a variety of links designed by the author. Michael has even been credited for being the grandfather of Hypertext in Norton's postmodern anthology. Pretty keen stuff. So my thesis was a bunch jargon and postmodern idioms that were fun to write but it's hard to sift through the material without a background in the subject. Favorite books on the curriculum included: Pussy King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker and Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid in the World by, Chris Ware. I became hooked on the comic aspect of it after I heard a lecture on the history of comics by Art Spiegelman the author of Maus. Best lecture I've ever been to. So, I ordered the giant in depth version of Watchmen and am now counting down the days till it arrives in the mailbox. I highly recommend everyone checks it out and gives it a chance.
Well, I'm out like a New Orleans traffic light.
