I’m enjoying teaching, despite suddenly remembering how dull I find accounting. The students are more or less into it and I’m happy to have a captive audience for my stupid jokes. Yes, I am your cheesy high school science teacher! The other day I was encouraging a student to speak up—to say the same thing he was saying, but louder. He finally repeated himself, but in the same timid voice. I don’t know what possessed me, but I worked myself up into a frenzy that crescendoed with my beating my chest and yelling “li-a-bilitieeeees!” They got a kick out of it, and I have to figure accounting is pretty boring for a full day so we’ve got to bring some levity once in a while.
There was a fresh snow on Wednesday (so Haroun’s flight didn’t end up leaving until Thursday), and when we got to the university the doors to the library weren’t yet open. So I did what any grown man would do—started throwing snowballs and made a snowman. No one really helped, so I’m not sure what the students thought of this idiot messing around like a child in the snow. I have to imagine some thought/think I’m pretty ridiculous—some of the things they have seen or had to endure, the difficulty of their lives, I suppose I may have come off as rather spoiled to have the time and energy to occupy myself with this kind of trivial play. I guess I’d like to think they need to be reminded of a simple joy like playing in snow. Some were tossing snowballs later (at my snowman—jerks!) and they’ve asked me to organize a snowball fight a couple times, so maybe they felt some permission to relax a bit.
The racial diversity of the students is remarkable—some of them look like they could be from Jersey or Michigan. The one I think looks like he could be from Jersey I guess gets ribbed because the others think he looks like George W. Bush! I’ll see about posting his photo—we took everyone’s photo today to help us when it comes time to do evaluations for class participation.
One kid, Kanishka, looks a whole lot like my friend Andy in New York. Take a look and see what you think. Andy, send in a photo so we can get the side-by-side… He and a couple other students cornered me to talk about religion. Apparently they had a comparative religion class but never had the chance to talk with someone who wasn’t Muslim! It was interesting how into it they were—I guess I’m used to New Yorkers who tend to steer clear of the topic in conversation, if not in life generally. Kanishka in particular got worked up about proving the existence of God—“look at this computer, it is off until I come to turn it on—if I was not here to turn it on, it would not be turned on!” I go to church with my family and I’m generally comfortable in that context, but in this situation I felt at the razor’s edge of…I don’t know, so much. The Clash of Civilizations, I guess. It hasn’t come up again.
There was a fresh snow on Wednesday (so Haroun’s flight didn’t end up leaving until Thursday), and when we got to the university the doors to the library weren’t yet open. So I did what any grown man would do—started throwing snowballs and made a snowman. No one really helped, so I’m not sure what the students thought of this idiot messing around like a child in the snow. I have to imagine some thought/think I’m pretty ridiculous—some of the things they have seen or had to endure, the difficulty of their lives, I suppose I may have come off as rather spoiled to have the time and energy to occupy myself with this kind of trivial play. I guess I’d like to think they need to be reminded of a simple joy like playing in snow. Some were tossing snowballs later (at my snowman—jerks!) and they’ve asked me to organize a snowball fight a couple times, so maybe they felt some permission to relax a bit.
The racial diversity of the students is remarkable—some of them look like they could be from Jersey or Michigan. The one I think looks like he could be from Jersey I guess gets ribbed because the others think he looks like George W. Bush! I’ll see about posting his photo—we took everyone’s photo today to help us when it comes time to do evaluations for class participation.
One kid, Kanishka, looks a whole lot like my friend Andy in New York. Take a look and see what you think. Andy, send in a photo so we can get the side-by-side… He and a couple other students cornered me to talk about religion. Apparently they had a comparative religion class but never had the chance to talk with someone who wasn’t Muslim! It was interesting how into it they were—I guess I’m used to New Yorkers who tend to steer clear of the topic in conversation, if not in life generally. Kanishka in particular got worked up about proving the existence of God—“look at this computer, it is off until I come to turn it on—if I was not here to turn it on, it would not be turned on!” I go to church with my family and I’m generally comfortable in that context, but in this situation I felt at the razor’s edge of…I don’t know, so much. The Clash of Civilizations, I guess. It hasn’t come up again.
1 comment:
So let's see, thus far you've sounded your barbaric yawp, made snowmen, and pulled a move from Police Academy in an effort to increase a student's volume. Yes, this is progress. I'm with you, accounting and working in Excel all day can be quite droll. Seriously, it sounds like you are achieving some significant gains.
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