yowsers

Reality has started seeping into my noggin'. Last night some guy asked me what I did-- he surmised that I worked at a church or was studying. I blurted out, "I teach 7th graders." It was very Rain Man of me. Then, he made it out like I was Teresa of Calcutta. Altruism is an element of my motivation, but I really want to teach. I hesitate to say I'm called to teach. But, then again, I'm really hesitant about God talk: it's not like I answered a phone call from one of God's people or had a dream. Can you imagine filling out an app: God wants me to teach Language Arts and Social Studies? That would rock you all the way to the crazy house.

When you are as silly as I am and slow down to think about said "Language Arts", I think "sarcasm" and "on·o·mato·poe·ia". And for Social Studies, I remember sitting with my best friend's grandmother in the shoe section of Belk's in Carolina Place people-watching-- to me that's the definition of Social Studies. When I got the teacher's edition of the text books today, they made me laugh. It's ironic because I hate text books, especially for English and History. Let's have books about books about books; we'll call them meta-books, I mean, text books (as opposed to picture books?). CSL argues that secondary literature stinks. He says why study about Plato when you could study Plato. You study Plato then you read the stinky secondary lit. That's how my how my high school and undergrad course of study was too.

But, I'm getting really excited. Excitement is invading my body as I write; it feels a little weird but I'm not sneezing like when I get a cold. My out of shape synapses sputter but produce. I'm definitely going to keep a journal of my first official year of teaching. I don't know if I'll start a specific blog or a spiral-ring notebook or just bore my nonexistent readers. (This is called suspense, dear reader. It is an aspect of the art of language.)