I'm becoming schizophrenic, y'all. I forget who I'm supposed to be from time to time, start using my teacher voice with my peers in the creative workshops I'm taking, find myself laughing at my kids' inappropriate jokes (when I should be schooling them on how to be respectful college students). I was commenting on my classmates' memoir essays* for poetry workshop the other day, and I caught myself marking weak thesis statements, misplaced modifiers, poor paragraph development. That's probably not the best way to be a respectful classmate, is it? Well, teaching basic writing really informs the way I read writing. And the way I write. Don't mess with Tim/Mr. Sisk when it comes to transitions and topic sentences.
Today, I've decided to take a break from all the grading and teachering to focus on getting my thoughts in order. I'm calling it my Mental Health Day, a day in which I will not respond to student emails, I will not do lesson plans, and I will not read a blessed critical essay on poetry or drama for the classes I'm taking. That's why God invented Sundays, right?
I'm going to the Greek Festival with some friends and reading around in Gregory Maguire's Wicked for fun. I'm going to wipe down my kitchen counters and make some chicken cutlets. Then wipe the counters down again. And then I might work on revising some poems, or I might just read some of the poetry collections I've been picking up from book sales and the library that I haven't had time to do much more than skim. I'm expecting all of y'all to hold me accountable.
*Memoir essay: Use an experience from your life to situate yourself in a poem you like, thereby reading it autobiographically and getting inside the poet's head to better understand the lyrical decisions she made. That way you can understand how the rhythms, line length, form, etc., works in that poet's poem and import those strategies into your own poetics. It's a wonderful assignment, probably best for advanced writers (but, you know, it might be a good way to teach beginning writers how to engage with a poem). I chose "Practicing" by Marie Howe and wrote about my first kiss. The exercise was so helpful, I plan to do it with other poems as I work on the critical introduction to my chapbook.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
In Absentia
Hot damn. I have a new respect for my teachers, especially the ones whose primary course evaluation method involves grading essays. If my kids ask me one more time when they are getting their papers back, I'm going to explode. This week, young ones. I'll get them to you this week.
Yes, this is why I've been absent. Because I'm a teacher, but I'm also still a student, and I have not yet found the balance among being Tim, Mr. Sisk, and Bookspaz the Blogger. So the ol' blog has taken a backseat to the drama theory I've been reading, the rhetorical analysis I've been teaching. Now, I'm snatching a minute while my clothes tumble and my coffee gets cold to get a bit of blogging done. Here goes.
I've applied, been accepted, and had a phone interview for the Southern Teachers Agency. This means when private and independent schools around the South start looking for English teachers, my very friendly placement counselor, Jay, will match me up with them for interviews with principals, and I might be employed next year. When I asked my thesis advisor to write me a letter of rec for this program, she rolled her eyes a bit. I shouldn't teach high school, she says. Then she proceeded to give me the name of the English Dept. Chair at the community college here in Knoxville. So, I'll apply there too, but I bet I won't have much luck. There's an academic glut in East Tennessee.
What I really want to do is work in a bakery for a year or so. I've always wanted to learn to decorate cakes, and baking is one of my Most Favorite Things To Do. It calms me. Focuses my attention on something so my mind won't scuttle around among the jostling thoughts of papers to grade, books to read, exams to prepare for, boys to stop myself from loving. There's one in Knoxville I adore. I might see if I can weasel my way into a position there this summer. We'll see.
I just don't want to be one of those aimless wanderers with a Master's degree in English. I want a job and and a dog and a two-bedroom apartment. That's why I'm making plans so soon.
In other news, the teaching is going well except for the fact that I'm never as good in my first class as I am in my second. Every MWF I leave the first group (or rather, they leave me since I teach back-to-back in the same classroom) feeling like those kids deserve a better teacher. But I'm what they've got, and I'll keep on trucking along. I'm still getting my land legs, y'all.
I've made up my mind to ride my bike to Panera Bread today and write a little. I haven't had time to write much of anything besides emails and paper comments this week, and I've got some poems I need to get out of my head. You all know the feeling.
I hope everyone is well. I hope you're all registered to vote. I hope you're all voting for Obama (one of my friend's students spelled his name, "O'Bama.") Love.
Yes, this is why I've been absent. Because I'm a teacher, but I'm also still a student, and I have not yet found the balance among being Tim, Mr. Sisk, and Bookspaz the Blogger. So the ol' blog has taken a backseat to the drama theory I've been reading, the rhetorical analysis I've been teaching. Now, I'm snatching a minute while my clothes tumble and my coffee gets cold to get a bit of blogging done. Here goes.
I've applied, been accepted, and had a phone interview for the Southern Teachers Agency. This means when private and independent schools around the South start looking for English teachers, my very friendly placement counselor, Jay, will match me up with them for interviews with principals, and I might be employed next year. When I asked my thesis advisor to write me a letter of rec for this program, she rolled her eyes a bit. I shouldn't teach high school, she says. Then she proceeded to give me the name of the English Dept. Chair at the community college here in Knoxville. So, I'll apply there too, but I bet I won't have much luck. There's an academic glut in East Tennessee.
What I really want to do is work in a bakery for a year or so. I've always wanted to learn to decorate cakes, and baking is one of my Most Favorite Things To Do. It calms me. Focuses my attention on something so my mind won't scuttle around among the jostling thoughts of papers to grade, books to read, exams to prepare for, boys to stop myself from loving. There's one in Knoxville I adore. I might see if I can weasel my way into a position there this summer. We'll see.
I just don't want to be one of those aimless wanderers with a Master's degree in English. I want a job and and a dog and a two-bedroom apartment. That's why I'm making plans so soon.
In other news, the teaching is going well except for the fact that I'm never as good in my first class as I am in my second. Every MWF I leave the first group (or rather, they leave me since I teach back-to-back in the same classroom) feeling like those kids deserve a better teacher. But I'm what they've got, and I'll keep on trucking along. I'm still getting my land legs, y'all.
I've made up my mind to ride my bike to Panera Bread today and write a little. I haven't had time to write much of anything besides emails and paper comments this week, and I've got some poems I need to get out of my head. You all know the feeling.
I hope everyone is well. I hope you're all registered to vote. I hope you're all voting for Obama (one of my friend's students spelled his name, "O'Bama.") Love.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Wherein Mr. Sisk rants not about teen pregnancy but teen marriage.
So, looks like teenage pregnancy is all the rage again. Solange Knowles back in '03. Then Jamie Lynn Spears. And all those pregnancy pact girls in New England (thank God they weren't from Mississippi). Now, I'm specifically interested in Bristol Palin's pregnancy, because as we all know, her abstinence-only education supporting mother is the newly announced Republican veep candidate. Perhaps Bristol's untimely knocking up will communicate something to her mother about sex education. I doubt enough to change her politics, though.
I'm not trying to be pejorative here. I commend Bristol for keeping her baby. It's going to be tough, but it's going to be worth it. What absolutely blows my mind is the news that Bristol intends to marry the baby's father. At 17. Now, feel free to disagree, but I'm strongly under the persuasion that having a baby at seventeen most likely won't ruin her life, but getting married that young will. That's two adult roles the poor girl will have to take on all at once: mother and wife. Hopefully those hormones will kick in and guide her in the mother role, but I hear it takes people years to learn how to play the spouse(admittedly, it probably takes men longer). And at seventeen, I worry both Bristol and Baby Daddy will be way too self-involved to make a relationship work. Loving a baby you birth and can't send back is one thing; loving the boy who knocked you up Til Death Do You Part is quite another. I'm flabbergasted, really.
It's 2008. No longer is the stigma of being an unwed single mother as severe. Okay, I've never been one, but I've known plenty and it seems to me that there is quite a precedent for successfully raising a child as a single mother. There is not, however, the same precedent for young marriages (hell, marriages in general). Perhaps it's my Gen Y sensibilities showing, or my white trash morality, but I think there are far worse things in this world than having a baby out of wedlock. Much worse. War, poverty, restless legs syndrome. Marrying at seventeen. Sheesh.
I hate to rant so much, but damn, y'all. Does anyone else find this impending marriage as ludicrous as I do?
In other news, Mr. Sisk is back in action with a vengeance. Not only has he successfully conferenced with all his students (all 43 of them!) without canceling class (a nightmare, btw), but he's also stayed on top of his grading and made two unsuspecting eighteen-year-old girls cry. Well, they actually made themselves cry, or thought crying would get them out of having to buy books. But it didn't work, because he knows college freshmen are often very selfish (he was one not so long ago). And that they are too immature to get married.
Wit that, I dash off to read Nietzsche. That's a line I never thought I'd use.
Happy Tuesday, y'all.
I'm not trying to be pejorative here. I commend Bristol for keeping her baby. It's going to be tough, but it's going to be worth it. What absolutely blows my mind is the news that Bristol intends to marry the baby's father. At 17. Now, feel free to disagree, but I'm strongly under the persuasion that having a baby at seventeen most likely won't ruin her life, but getting married that young will. That's two adult roles the poor girl will have to take on all at once: mother and wife. Hopefully those hormones will kick in and guide her in the mother role, but I hear it takes people years to learn how to play the spouse(admittedly, it probably takes men longer). And at seventeen, I worry both Bristol and Baby Daddy will be way too self-involved to make a relationship work. Loving a baby you birth and can't send back is one thing; loving the boy who knocked you up Til Death Do You Part is quite another. I'm flabbergasted, really.
It's 2008. No longer is the stigma of being an unwed single mother as severe. Okay, I've never been one, but I've known plenty and it seems to me that there is quite a precedent for successfully raising a child as a single mother. There is not, however, the same precedent for young marriages (hell, marriages in general). Perhaps it's my Gen Y sensibilities showing, or my white trash morality, but I think there are far worse things in this world than having a baby out of wedlock. Much worse. War, poverty, restless legs syndrome. Marrying at seventeen. Sheesh.
I hate to rant so much, but damn, y'all. Does anyone else find this impending marriage as ludicrous as I do?
In other news, Mr. Sisk is back in action with a vengeance. Not only has he successfully conferenced with all his students (all 43 of them!) without canceling class (a nightmare, btw), but he's also stayed on top of his grading and made two unsuspecting eighteen-year-old girls cry. Well, they actually made themselves cry, or thought crying would get them out of having to buy books. But it didn't work, because he knows college freshmen are often very selfish (he was one not so long ago). And that they are too immature to get married.
Wit that, I dash off to read Nietzsche. That's a line I never thought I'd use.
Happy Tuesday, y'all.
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