Doing It Right for a Change

Y'all, I'm published! Okay, so it's an online publication, but it's still all mine. I would like to thank Dr. Stephanie Vanderslice for letting me know about the publishing opportunity with Splinter Generation. Read my poem and let me know what you think!

In other news, I'm coming down with the funk from running myself ragged with the course work and the teaching and the socializing. Snotty nose and sore throat makes Tim a sad boy. But not so sad that I didn't go out with a whole slough of folks for cheap Mexican food and half-priced Dos Equis pitchers tonight. I mean, I had to eat, right? Plus, it's against my religion to stay in on a Friday night. I have people to love on, y'all.

In the long absence since my last post, I've been busy, busy, busy: writing poems and short stories, reading about campy performance art, teaching argumentative writing to somewhat resistant-but-still-utterly-adorable college freshpeople. Spending too much time loving on friends. I'm living the dream, and I hate to think that it's going to end in six months. Here's to making it the best six months yet.

I'm on my way to bed for some much needed recuperation, but I'll share a completely endearing teacher story with you before I go:

A student confided to me in an individual conference before fall break that he felt he "just wasn't doing this college thing right." "I just don't have any friends, Mr. Sisk," he said. "I don't think I want to come back after Fall Break." His admission struck me as odd since he is one of the chattier boys in his class. In fact, I had planned to tell him he should stop talking so much in class, but my heart just melted. I couldn't scold him. I couldn't let him give up on college, especially since he tries so hard and does good work in my class. I told him that I noticed he'd been getting along with a boy he sits beside in my class, that from my end of things they looked like pretty good friends. "Ask him to go to the football game with you or go to church with him," I said, doing my best to speak to him in his language. I know his language. Well, last week I decided to hold class outside under a tree since the day was lovely and our reading dealt with defining a sense of place. Both classes did a wonderful job discussing the text (I was so proud!), and at the end of the class with the aforementioned student, he came up to ask me a question about an assignment. I noticed that the boy I told him he should consider his friend stood a few feet back waiting on him to finish talking to me. Then they walked across the quad together talking about things that 18-year-old boys talk about. I was so damned proud so see these friends interact, to know that maybe this boy no knows he is doing this college thing right. It was one of the best kinds of teaching moments, and I hope I remember it forever.


It sounds so cheesy, but I don't care: being a teacher is my favorite thing about my life. And I've got a pretty good life full of lots of great things.

Happy weekend, y'all!