Time 8:40 let the students out a while ago, stopped in a classroom around the corner and talked to that one adjunct (can never remember her name), see how she was doing. “Sorry I asked,” I remember thinking, as went on with grievance after grievance about her 1A students and how the population in her glass has dissolved down to I think a single digit. I then left bag in adjunct cell where the weirdo adjunct was approaching the door as I was to set up for a student meeting. I zoomed to the cafeteria for another dose of blacker than black, blackly romantic coffee, then back to cell where Weirdo is meeting with a student, talking about writing like he has a clue— no, like he has all the clues, every last one of them. He knows everything about writing. I don’t want to be near that nor him for another lash’s tip of a second, so skip to the conference room. MY seat, at the top of the T’d tables. Will run later but not before driving to SCOE. First run, then SCOE. Decreed— Want to see what I can do for Fall, teaching high school English, tutoring, something. My aim of being a lifelong educator and student (again re-enforced this morning by students in the ‘5’ class), is tremoring about my thoughts and scopes this morning. Full-timers pass by probably wondering “what the hell is he always writing?” Huh, wouldn’t you love to know. I’m writing me. My story. My reactions… One of the ‘5’ students, ‘C’, told me she wants to one day teach high school English. “Yep, I’m pretty excited,” she said as I looked into her journal, checking it for points on this final day of reg’ instr’, even though she doesn’t need the added pointage.
Pen at left with single sheet of paper, my revised business plan as a writing professor, or educator. What I’ve learned this morning is that if a morning starts rough or awkward that doesn’t definitively dictate how the story will sequence.
Pain in my right knee, slight but enough for me to notice, enough for me to be annoyed with as I want to force self onto the treadmill for speedwork. At least 8 miles today, necessary. THEN, immediately after I’ll register for two half-marathons. Don’t know why I’ve been putting that off. Well, I do… I’m lazy, and I feel my laziness and lazy side of my character intensifying. I partially blame that for my defeated state in the 4AM War.
In these two hours, which already has faded down to an hour and 50 mins, I’m running toward 3,000 words. Running before I run. Time doesn’t care, as I always write and complain, but the teacher, this teacher, teaches himself now at this semester’s close to not care. HST said his life became better when he was forced not to care. And time has forced me. What can I do? I’m going to be 37 in 11 days, I’m getting older, Jack and Emma get older and bigger and not a thing the writer can do. Remedy: Think of where you are, what you’re doing, what more you can and will do. Travel… lecture….. Talked to that adjunct in her classroom about Poe, what Poe taught through his writings and what I can teach through his teaching and words. He said this all a dream within a dream. A positive dream, elevating dream, educating dream. One where everything is possible, all my lectures and travels, the writings and the scribbles in random places. More of the unexpected, more of the interactions…
A full-timer talks to an adjunct, and they engage in real discussion. I take it from the conversation this adjunct has been here a while. Never seen her or met her before, but I can tell she’s a career adjunct, just fine with it, being part-time, makes it work for her. “Good for her,” I think to myself, sip my coffee while they talk about dogs and what they do for their dogs, and I get bored with their words and imagine them talking about quitting, and how disgruntled— I find out he’s adjunct, too, and that he lectures at SSU. Then I remember, what happened to SSU? Why did I never wind up teaching there again? You know what… I’ll go up to SCOE, then down to SSU. Going to exhaust every lead. I’m going to be as tireless an educator as I am a writer.
1 hour, 37 minutes— Motivated. More than motivated. Writing lectures for English 100 for Summer, already seeing it being my best semester, more than this one. Bottled Ox, seeing himself differently. More an educator than a writer, I hope— NO, I know. Teaching myself to be a professor that demands attention, demands respect, demands conversation. For the Summer, I’m going to place heavy prominence on the journal. And it has to be a Composition Book. See if they follow that simple instruction. If they don’t, for whatever reason, then I meet them where they are. That simple. That’s much of what teaching is, I’m finding. Not trying so hard to mold the students but encourage them to go forward with their identities, their written presences. Yes, I counsel and help them polish where needed, but I don’t want them to think I’m trying to make them something they’re not. Who they are is what I’m embracing as an instructor, and who I want them to subscribe to in being students. Starting to think I shouldn’t even bother with SSU. And I notice myself doing that, someone mentions something and I’m like ‘oh I should do that…’. Not this time. I’m changing. I’ll drive up to SCOE, make the connections I need, meet whomever I should, get the information I need, then dash to the gym. Or should I run first? Wasn’t that the initial plan? Yes, run, then SCOE.
Away I go.
Still more than enough time to tell a story.