Tomorrow is the last day of classes. Sunday is usually the day of doom, unless you teach on Tuesday and Thursday but today felt fairly carefree. That's because the burden of proof has shifted to the students, where it belongs, until they turn in their final papers, when the burden of proof goes back to me again (why this grade and not that grade? etc.) For now, I could be anyone with a "real" job. Or someone with no job at all! I could even wash my car on a weekday! Who would know what I'm up to? Except that I never wash my car. That would really be something. Why is she washing her car? What does THIS mean?
I told my students, after the Virginia Tech thing, not to start profiling each other, that college was a good time to experiment and be odd. Who knows what your neighbors really think of you? You believe they think you are nice, and a regular person, but for all you know, they see you as a wild-eyed, drug crazed insane person with bizarre habits (coming home at 1 am!) (working all night!) (the things you throw away!) and even more bizarre friends and associates (who WAS that person with the cape?)
If this is the last entry you read, don't be surprised. I have no idea how to return to this blog-thing to write more.
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Every day is a snow day in my mind. I think whatever I want and write some of it down.
Categories
Movies: You missed something important the first time.
- Soylent Green
- The Sixth Sense
- The Conformist
- Memento
- Dead Again
- Frailty
1 comment:
Speaking of profiling or not profiling one another, here's something one of my (male) students felt compelled to tell me on the last day of class: "You start out the week dressed in light bright colors and end up on Friday all dark angel. Why don't you try reversing it? -- Also, give the guys in your class a break -- so much feminine energy!" Well, this is a shock! First, that anyone (male, and frankly, young) looks at what I am wearing at all, is a big fat surprise. And, a pattern emerges that gets noticed, and one that I didn't intend at that, gets noticed, another shock! And, now, dress for success advice, from a Personal Shopper Student! It's not bad advice though. The students are not to blame for the "dark half" of my academic life. I have most of my academic power meetings toward the end of the week, and therein the secret of female professional success emerges: a woman who wants to win psychological battles of any kind ought to look as if she has extra time and energy to do anything in the world she pleases, including dressing up. And for me, "dressing up" involves New York City rules, i.e. black.
As for the feminine energy, I never gave it a thought since I was teaching MALE PHILOSOPHERS and the TRADITIONAL CANON. But I guess I let a whole lotta snarky criticisms slip in, and that, my friends, is "feminine energy"! I do think that my (male) student was pointing out something important in addition. But what?
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