First Day of School

Betcha thought some old post had resurfaced, but no, it's true. Today is the first day of the first time I'll teach summer school since I started work at SUNYIT. My creative writing class has three people in it. They are paying for Dennis the house painter to transform this old house.

I was going to teach technical writing online, but that meant eight weeks of an obligation to log on and read posts and grade, and well, there's not that much summer to be had. So, under a new deal, I'm allowed to keep my class open even with three students at $350.00 a head. That means $50.00 leftover for paint, since I'm exploiting the house painter horribly and he's only making $1,000. to paint my house. I had four students at one point, but somebody bailed. Don't worry; I know the paint will cost more than $50.00.

I have a long history with summer school. I started my college career in Latin American History with Jack Owens at ISU, four days a week, three+ hours a day. He's a nice man (a real dog lover), but man was I tired after about 3:00, and we still had 90 minutes to go. After that four weeks was over, it was American History Part 2 and Philosophy, for another four weeks. That habit of two or three summer classes was repeated every summer for my undergraduate career. I read Paul Churchland while Big and Pin took swim lessons. Later, I did linguistics to make up some of my "deficits" when switching from El Ed to English for my M.A..

I like summer school. On a big, busy campus like ISU summer is quiet and peaceful. When I first started summer school, the place was always populated by army officers come for training. One of them had a little crush on me, I think. She would always smile and ask me how I was that day.

As a teacher, some of my best classes were summer ones. The last class I taught for ISU was in Idaho Falls (satellite campus), and the students all pitched in and gave me a going away to NY present. I always tell people that lavender foot cream was part of the gift because they'd all been smelling my horrid feet in sandals for eight weeks. They were great students and fun to teach.

Today I'll meet some new great students, and we'll have a blast. We'll do David Sedaris and laugh, and we'll do some serious memoir too. And Jess, we'll do the chocolate chip cookie exercise. Remember that?

So, don't worry. They're not just paint money to me, these students. In the languid summer afternoon hours, they'll become a community of writers, and anybody walking by the classroom will hear bursts of laughter or see students thoughtfully commenting on each other's work. Besides, they only have to put with me for four weeks, and my sandals are a lot (well, a bit) less smelly than they used to be.

I have to remember as I get ready to teach summer school that as interesting as I am to listen to for hours at a time (ask anybody!) we'll all need a few breaks. And we can write outside, something not always easy to do in CNY. So, wish me luck!

Happy Tuesday and Peace,
Welcome Jaybear. I hope MNYAGG will be as amusing as you'd hoped it would.