Becoming Acclimated (Kind Of)

Getting to know you
Getting to know all about you
Getting to like you
Getting to hope you like me
--Oscar Hammerstein, "Getting to Know You"
(from The King and I)

The second week of school finds me feeling a bit more comfortable in the hallways (i.e., finding the bathroom). Today, I learned how to make a transparency on the Xerox. It's not much different than it used to be, but it is a different machine, and I don't want to be "the new guy who broke the copier," so, I made sure the production room manager showed me how to do it. I still get demoralized (fleetingly) when a kiddo asks me a question I can't answer. (Today a youngster asked me a question about academic letters that was akin to the Tiger-Woods-Grand-Slam-over-the-course-of-two-seasons-controversy of a few years ago. I just looked at him for a second longer than necessary and shrugged my shoulders. I'm sure that does not fill him with confidence as to my competence, but it certainly keeps him on his toes.)

I still feel like I am creating most of my lessons from scratch. So much is different about the approach to American Lit. I was looking at my notebooks and notebooks of material from previous years, and I can't see me using much of anything. It makes for a lot of work. Some of which I did on this past Sunday. Monkey and I spent some down time on Saturday, but most of Sunday was a work day for me. Actually, that's not too unusual during the school year, but this past Sunday was a particularly sustained six or seven hours of work.

The sophomores will be a work in progress all year, I have determined. In some respects, all classes are a work in progress all year, but on many levels, these young men and women need some serious time (or corrective measures) to figure out how things go down in my class. Nothing I can't handle, and not even close to being the most difficult group I've ever worked with. (Aunt James, you know who I'm talking about.)

And now, it's time to hit the hay, so I can face another day rested and recharged. But before I do, let me announce that Jolie Holland is playing in Omaha, on September 28. Monkey and I are planning to be in CoMo on Sept. 29, so we may not be able to fit that show in, but I would really like to figure out how we can.