Tim Sisk is a poet

In true narcissistic fashion, I Googled myself and found another poet Tim Sisk out there. You can read his work here. I'm particularly fond of his piece "The Failed Project of Friendship" seeing as how I'm teaching a class on the topic, it's a research interest of mine (particularly gender and friendship, gay men's friendship, and friendship in literature), and I don't think my friendship projects have failed, interpersonally, academically, or otherwise.

Take note of his rhyme scheme and over-wrought tone. I feel you, emotive Tim Sisk, though I hope I'm a better poet that you are. But hey, you're fighting the good fight, writing what you have to, making sense of the world. Isn't that our project as writers?

Google yourselves and see what interesting bits you find!

From Folks Who've Never Been Happy

Momma's up to it again. Putting out her husband just to take him back. She told my father she wanted him to remarry her, build her a house. He said that would mean he couldn't retire next year. His way of saying "yes." But she took back the other one, the drinking one with herniated discs, because she doesn't know how to be happy without him.

Momma's never been happy. I called today and asked her as much, and she said "what is happiness"? I don't have an answer for her. Like her, I, too, am never satisfied. I don't know what having enough is because I'm from a place and a people who always had too make do with too little. My grandmother is a magician with canned soup and coupons, and the Mississippi legislature always shaves more off the budget. I was educated at over-crowded schools by under-qualified teachers and had a momma who worked second jobs waiting tables to buy expensive shoes for my wide feet. I know how to appreciate what I have, but I know everything I have is provisional; it comes at a cost for somebody, somewhere. Usually due to the sacrifice of someone who loves me but is too tired to tell me so. I don't want to be that way, but I don't know any other way to be.

Now, I'm job hunting and packing to move. Finished with school, I'm a capital A Adult, and I don't know what I'm doing. Yes, I can pay my bills on time and wash my dishes and clean behind my ears. I can stretch a dollar and make do on small portions. But I feel the pressure of my legacy bearing down on me, the weight of all my mother's unhappiness, and her mother's and her mother's, so strongly I might rupture.

I know I can make do. But I want to do more than that. But with this economy and all.

(I promise I'm not suicidal or sad. Just contemplative and scared. What if the Real World eats me alive?)

Still Kicking Around

I didn't die, y'all. Though that bout of the flu I had over Spring Break almost did me in. I just went on hiatus while I wrote a Masters Thesis, a collection of poems with a critical introduction called "Parts of A Man." There are body parts and speaking parts and car parts and hair parts all throughout. Rereading it this morning, I think it's about as good as it's gonna get by Friday. And I'm pleased with it.

Now I'm buried under a slough of papers and quizzes to grade. My kiddos are staring me down with fervor each time I walk into the classroom.

All I do is write and teach and grade and watch the local news, it seems. It's official, y'all. I've become a boring adult.

Anybody up for Yatzee and bed by 8:30?

Snowball Effects

It snowed in Knoxville today. Snow fell harder than I'd ever seen it fall before, and I was not scared. I'm usually irrationally afraid of inclement weather, but I think I've gotten to the point where snow doesn't bother me so much. Rain, on the other hand. I'd rather stay home all day than drive in any amount of drizzle.

The effect the cold winter in East Tennessee has had on me is interesting. I've taken a strong liking for college basketball (I love it) and I've begun watching more Must See TV. Do they even still call it that? Either way, I'm a fan of "The Office" now, and I swore I'd never be. Cold weather makes me back pedal.

If I haven't learned but one thing in 24 years, it's this: Everyone back pedals, to the extent that everyone says "Never will I ever" and winds up doing it anyway. What we must learn from this is how not to say, "Never will I ever again." But even if we do it again, it's not the end of the world. Well, unless you kill someone I guess.

Which brings me to Michael Phelps hitting the bong. Does anyone else share my "get a grip" mentality? He's 23 and was at a party. Smoking pot kind of goes with the territory sometimes. It's not like he was snorting coke or fighting pit bulls. Or worse, feeding pit bulls coke and then doing the back stroke with them. Perhaps my morals are too loose.

Anyway, I'll brag on myself then I have to dash to my beloved thesis adviser's poetry reading. My poem "Ceremony of Hormone Replacement" is being published in the Winter 2009 issue of Yemassee. My first print journal publication. I feel like I've joined the writer's club. Wanna know how I celebrated? By going to the UT basketball game Saturday night. Sheesh.

Keep warm, y'all.

Is this burning an eternal flame?

Back again after a break to get my land legs this semester. I'm one of those creatures of habit. I love routine, so the beginning of each semester is torture for me as I fumble to figure out when I'll squeeze in my writing, my lesson planning, my lunch eating, and my friend seeing. I've almost got it figured out for Spring 2009, so I'll snatch a second to write.

I turned 24 two weeks ago, and for the first time ever I feel less like an emotionally over-wrought 17-year-old girl and more like an adult. Since I'm teaching at morning times this semester (which I love so much), I've cut back on week night happy hours, and I've begun watching the local news at 4, 6, and 11 then going to bed. Gotta make sure I catch all the subtle changes in the weather forecast, y'all. I've paid off my credit cards, and I'm sending out resumes to schools all over the place while simultaneously keeping an eye on educational funding, praying to Jesus that I'll get a job somewhere.

I've started praying again, but I don't think that means I've rejoined the flock. Hell, I never was a part of the flock to begin with. But something's gotta give in these hard economic times, and I'm not strong enough to brave the job market on my own. All I ask of God: get me out or get me through it.

I'm teaching my course on friendship this semester. It's going extremely well. I'm more confident in the classroom, feel as if I've convinced at least half of my students why studying friendship and it's social and historical implications is important, and, well, they laugh at my jokes. That makes me feel like I'm doing something right. I love this new batch of kids. I think their 101 teachers did a good job of whipping them into shape: they seem motivated, interested, prepared, and polite. Sure, there's some riff raff; you'll have that in any classroom. But for the most part, these kids care and they are so damned polite. Another thing I pray for is the ability to teach them at least a little something.

Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about my teachers. I can remember little things they said to me or wrote on my papers, things I'm sure they never gave a second thought to. Donna Bowman told me to put my thesaurus up when I was her freshman. Monda Fason told me to take chances when I was her Vortex editor. Lisa Mongno told me in college, one ceases to be the smartest kid in school because he is in classes with the smartest kids from every other school. These are things I've internalized, rules I live by. Chunks of wisdom that continue to guide me in my academic and personal lives. I wonder what, if anything, I have said that will stick with students forever.

This idea is something I want to explore in greater detail in a later post. I want to tell you the Jordan Lance story. But now, I have to run to poetry workshop. I look forward to hearing from y'all.

Back By Popular Demand

Today, my semester begins, atrociously early if you ask me. Still, I start teaching the course I designed, English 102: Inquiry into Friendship, at 10:10--a little over an hour away. I'm not nearly as nervous about the first day of classes this semester like I was back in August. I've got my land legs now, and I have an airtight syllabus that covers my ass against all the brouhaha I faced last semester. I hope. Plus, I've missed being in the classroom. Bitching and moaning aside, I love teaching. I love my students. I love wearing teacher clothes and being called Mr. Sisk. It's going to be a good semester.

It's going to be my last semester, at least for a while. I graduate in May, and I've already started applying for teaching jobs. One in Little Rock, one in Baltimore, one in Cincinnati. I'll be applying all over the place, so wish me luck. This economy is just awful. I wish I could stay in my beloved East Tennessee for work, but I doubt that will happen, what with the massive lecturer layoff at UT and the academic glut in Knoxville. I don't want to think about packing up all my stuff, U-hauling it to God-knows-where, unpacking it in the late July heat. Even more I don't want to think about leaving my friends behind in Knoxville. I have the greatest friends, y'all.

So I won't think about it. Right now, I'll think about what jokes I can crack on the first day of teaching and how I'm looking forward to happy hour tonight with Leah, Noel, and Eric. I'll think about how grateful I am to my professor Art Smith for giving me a copy of James Wright's collected poems, and I think I'll even try my hand at writing something Wright-inspired before I dash off to campus. God knows I need to write; I've been slacking.

Happy tidings to everyone. Keep the dream alive.

10 Things I Learned About Teaching

Originally, I was going to list the top ten things I learned not to do in the composition classroom for this post. But I was being a bit down on myself that day, and I realized I learned some things that work extremely well. So, I decided to present to y'all a list of things I learned--both good and bad--and hopefully some of you experienced teachers will offer me advice. If there's one thing I can't seem to get enough of, it's teacher advice. So here goes, in no particular order.

10. Never let students revise every paper. Doing so only ensures that the teacher is always grading and the students are always turning in shitty first drafts.

9. Be OCD about your course policies and make sure you list EVERY CONCEIVABLE THING in your syllabus. I failed to list that failure to turn in one major assignment for the course would result in a no credit grade for the class and wound up doing some fancy footwork when students were surprised they couldn't pass having not even bothered doing one of the major papers.

8. Don't use blogs unless you are dedicated to keeping up with reading and commenting on them. Students get offended when you don't comment on all their posts.

7. Ignorance is often bliss. Sometimes, it's better to pretend you didn't hear what the frat boy in the back of the room said about you to his buddy. Usually, you don't want to know the reason little Johnny came to class with a black eye and busted lip.

6. Never, EVER check your comments on ratemyprofessor.com. They will only give you a misguided view of how you're performing in the classroom.

5. Make a grading rubric, share it with the class, and always remind them to check it before turning in their papers. I swear if I hear one more gripe about my "inconsistent grading" I'm going to explode.

4. Let students know you care about their ideas. The best assignment I gave this semester was a group research project where students got together and worked on developing a research question, then researching that question and presenting it to the class. They all really enjoyed working with like-minded individuals researching stuff that didn't seem like school work, like the BCS, internet pornography, and online gaming.

3. Be critical, but be positive. Sometimes I found myself writing more scathing comments on student papers than I should have. Thank God I grade in pencil. Com 1 students need guidance and nurturing more so than any other student, I think.

2. Never accept/review emailed drafts. Always have students come to your office hours with hard copies or you'll find yourself, much like I did, reading the same student's paper 10 times before you actually *grade* it.

1. Know that YOU control the classroom. You're not their friend; you're their mentor and, in Comp 1, their homeroom mom, to a certain extent. It's okay to love them, but you still must maintain an authoritative position in the classroom. (Sometimes I wasn't so good at that one...)


It was an okay semester, y'all. I loved my kids. Each and every one of them, even the frat boy in the back who cursed me under his breath. I really love teaching, and I want to do it for a long, long time. It gets in your blood, doesn't it?

How were your teaching semesters?

Thank God that's over

I survived my first teaching semester, y'all. Barely did it, but I'm here, alive and still kicking. Just not as hard. In the days since my last class's final on Wednesday I was a hot mess trying to finish all the projects up for the courses I was taking and make appearances at all the English department holiday brouhaha I felt compelled to attend. I burned my apple crisp for the potluck, drank too much at the creative writing holiday party, and had a panic attack in the wee hours of Friday morning. Don't worry, though; I went to the doctor on campus, who referred me to a psychiatrist, and now I'm properly medicated for depression and anxiety. Like every other person in America. But I feel a lot calmer now, probably because the semester is over, and I like feeling calm.

I took the weekend really easy, only venturing out on Friday to have dinner with Eric, then a trip to the dog park for an hour on Saturday and a movie last night. Eric and I saw Milk, which I thought was phenomenally done, but I think he was a bit perturbed by the gratuitous man-on-man smooching. It's an important film, I think, because it shows the history of the gay community's fight for rights in this country, and this is an important history for gay people (and everyone else) to know about. Because chances are they don't.

I'm plowing through Twilight, and though Edward Cullen makes me tingle in all the right places, I think the book would be much better if it had been more scrupulously edited. Honestly, I'm tired of the first person narrator constantly describing her vampire-lover as "breathtakingly beautiful," "godlike," and "perfectly statuesque." Too cliche, Stephanie Meyer. Let's liven the language up, even if you are writing about the living dead.

I'm busy this week saying goodbye to friends for the few weeks of Xmas break (and I'm especially sad to see at least one of them go), gearing up for the Young Writers' Institute (which I'm co-chairing this year--Steph, Monda, I'm making you proud!), and working on the syllabus for the English 102 course I designed and will be teaching next semester: Inquiry into Friendship. I also need to clean my apartment, finish my Xmas shopping, wrap presents, and pack. Headed home for the holidays on Saturday the 20th.

I'm looking forward to being home for 10 days or so more than I thought I would. I'm going to use the time to write a poem a day, watch lots of HGTV, and avoid interacting with people for a while (except, of course, for the ones I can't live without: Mom, Dad, Eric, Virignia). I'm not mad at anyone, mind you. I love you all. I just had a tiring semester jumping through social hoops and directing the department's party life. I love the job, but I need a break, some time to be a basket case on my own terms.

And I don't intend on shaving at all over the the winter break.

So, things are looking up for me. I have plans. I have friends. I have dreams. I just thank God this semester's over.

Next post: "10 Things I Learned About What NOT To Do In The Composition Classroom."

Thankful

It's been so hard to keep with with the ol' blog since school started. Teaching, studenting, social chairing, reading, writing, cooking, cleaning, whew. All these necessary distractions make Mr. Sisk a bad blogger.

Regardless of my neglectfulness, I do occasionally snatch a second to post a pithy post that some of you read and a few comment on, for which I am truly thankful. It's nice to know my words are not swallowed up by the cyber void.

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I'm going to be busy student conferencing and then trans-Tennessee driving until then, I'm stealing a moment to share what I am most thankful for this holiday season. It's important that we remember to be thankful, I think, and especially, it's important for me to be grateful for those people who have loved me enough to sacrifice their time, money, energy, and desires to get me where I am today. Here's my list, then:

1. My family--Momma, Daddy, Muffy, Pippi, Jeffrey, Lily, and everybody else who has loved me and said prayers for me and worried about me and been proud of me. A large part of what I do, I do for you.

2. My friends, past and present. Even though I've lost touch with some of the best buddies I had at Central Arkansas, I still think of them and I'm glad I've known them. They have helped make me who I am. As for the friends of Thanksgiving Present--Eric, Virginia, Charlotte, Josh, Leah, and everybody else--I love you, I'm thankful for you. I couldn't do it without you.

3. My students, bless their hearts. I am sincerely grateful for each and every one of them. They have made me kinder, stronger, better.

4. Teachers--all of them--but especially mine, past and present. The true rock stars are educators. I've said that forever, even before I was one, and I stand by that statement even firmer now. I'm thankful for men and women who sacrifice their time and energy to make kids like me better human beings.

5. Six months, same as cash and/or interest-free financing options. Because when it rains, it pours, and the truest example of adulthood, I think, is resigning oneself to paying for things oneself, even if paying for it a little each month is the only option.

6. Change

7. Travel coffee mugs

8. Not burning the first batch of cookies (finally!)

What are you thankful for?

Note on the Fridge to Nearly Every Teacher I've Ever Had

Esteemed women and men, I do not envy your position as the end of the semester looms near like a shadow in the night. I once underestimated your ability to do everything--EVERYTHING--perfectly as our time together drew to a close. "It shouldn't take him that long to grade our papers," I thought. "She should have been more prepared for that class."

And you should have been. All of you. But how could you with all you had on your plates? Papers to grade, lessons to plan, dinners to cook, families to love, mental health to maintain. When I look at the sinkful of dirty dishes, the stacks of overdue library books and ungraded essays that have taken over my living space I can do more than imagine what your homes looks like every November. I'm living your lives now, dear teachers.

Late nights and early mornings, slacks worn for the fourth time without washing, unkempt hair, pots and pots of coffee, little more to eat than meat-and-bread sandwiches and bags of M & Ms. This is our life come end of the semester. This is what teaching entails. We embody it.

Thank you, teachers, for all the work you did for me and all the work you continue to do. You don't hear those words much, usually you only hear complaints from grade grubbers, but I hope you'll hear it from me, a once-and-future grade grubbing student, a currently overwhelmed teacher.

You are all amazing.

Sincerely,
Timothy J. Sisk

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!

Something for the critical intro

And Now



And now as you read these poems
--you whose eyes and hands I love
--you whose mouth and eyes I love
--you whose words and minds I love--
don't think I was trying to state a case
or construct a scenery:
I tried to listen to
the public voice of our time
tried to survey our public space
as best I could
--tried to remember and stay
faithful to details, note
precisely how the air moved
and where the clock's hands stood
and who was in charge of definitions
and who stood by receiving them
when the name of compassion
was changed to the name of guilt
when to feel with a human stranger
was declared obsolete.


1994

--Adrienne Rich, Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995

My Mother's Small Portions

I am frivolous, and I resent the fact that I am. This early afternoon, as I was contemplating ways to make a box of macaroni and cheese stretch as far as it possibly could, I thought of my mother, the meals she used to cook for my brother and me, how filling they were, how completely unfrivolous she has always been. Mama used to stretch a box of dollar store mac and cheese into a full meal on a regular basis when Jeffrey and I were little boys. Boiled elbow noodles and powdered cheese sauce mixed with chopped hot dog or browned and drained ground beef, a can of mixed vegetables. Dinner was served, and god, was it filling. We were never hungry little boys.

Thursday nights we always ate canned chili and store brand hot dogs, red and boiled, on light bread and Fritos. In the winter, lots of beef stew and peanut butter sandwich dinners, pinto beans and corn bread. Skillets of fried Spam and potatoes. I never ate anywhere besides home and my grandmothers' houses, and they ate like we did. I thought everyone did.

I was shocked this weekend spent at a cabin in Pigeon Forge with six of my closest friends when I saw the food they all brought. Ashley and his salmon fillets, peeled and de-veined shrimp. Jeremy and his expensive cheeses, Parmesan not from a green sprinkle can. Virginia's wheel of brie. These things I'd never dream of buying.

Even when I can afford higher-end groceries, I often don't buy them. It's class guilt, I think. Experience has taught me that things like expensive food (or weekend cabin trips for that matter) are frivolous. Money is better spent elsewhere, like on unexpected doctor's visits and prescriptions. Last minute car repairs. And I'm the king of unexpected crises of those varieties. Every damn time I reach for the non-off brand whathaveyou at Kroger, I hear Mama's voice, the voices of my aunts and grandmothers, back and back and back, telling me to think, to plan, to save my pennies here to pay on the dollars I'll have to spend later. And I listen, do as I'm told, and I always seem to have the money for those unexpected things, though I worry that might change with the current state of the economy. But that's a different blog post.

The point is, I can't spend a dime of my hard earned money without toiling over it. I can't have a meal at a restaurant without calculating what sacrifices I'll have to make at home for the rest of the week to make up for exorbitant spending or buy a tank of gas without contemplating canceling my cable service. I know what my means are, and I hate living beyond them. That's the cardinal sin of salt of the earth, lower-middle class people, my people. So, I feel badly for going on a weekend getaway when I should be saving for the unexpected. When I remember how when I was little, Mama was always on a diet, because she was conscious of her weight, but also because she wanted to make sure her husband and two boys had enough to eat. I was raised on my mother's small portions, her practicality. I worry I'll never be as unfrivolous as she is.

Notes from my Mental Health Day

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.

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.

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.

Why I love Michelle Obama

Because she is articulate and seems genuine.
Because I buy into the hype.
Because I believe her when she says she believes in change.
Because she's a mother and a mentor and a public servant.
Because this country needs the Obamas in the White House.






Anybody want to volunteer at the Obama campaign with me this Thursday?

On the topic of Friendship

When my momma managed the Family Dollar store at Bullfrog Corner, she became best friends with a hairdresser named Eunice who worked at the Mac's. No. 2 hair shop in the same strip mall, past the Super Valu that used to be a Piggly Wiggly that used to be a Big Star. That was back in the late 90s when I was just starting out in high school and came home crying a lot because I just didn't have any friends. Fourteen, fat, and effeminate were not traits that put one on the fast track to likablity and Horn Lake High School, and I knew it well every afternoon when I had no one to sit with on the school bus. My momma, though, she always knew how to make friends. A real go getter, my mother takes situations by the reigns and guides them in the direction of her favor. I still smile when I think of the story of Momma and Eunice's (now defunct) Friendship. It goes like this.

Eunice used to walk down to the store on her breaks from hairdressing and waste her tip money on polyresin angel figurines. Being the astute Southern woman that she is, Momma noticed Eunice's melon nail polish one day as she rang up her covey at the cash register and told her how much she loved the color. Within the same conversation, Momma found out where Eunice worked, her living situation (poor thing rented a mother-in-law wing from some family on Horn Lake Road) and decided they'd be friends. So, she said it, just like that: "Eunice, you look like somebody I want to be friends with, so let's be friends."

They were good friends for quite a few years, too. Eunice used to come over to the house and bring Momma little boxes of candy and neon colored cigarette lighters, and Momma would drive Eunice to see her mother at the nursing home. For a while there, I even got into the habit of calling Eunice "Aunt Nez," as Inez was her middle name and she had no nieces or nephews to regard her affectionately. She even would cut my hair for free if I went down to the shop after it closed.

Eunice was a recovering alcoholic, though. Momma knew this going into the relationship. Hell, she probably found out that much in the initial cash stand meeting, and that probably made her want to be Eunice's friend even more. I'm a lot like my momma in that we both take on the underdogs, the underachievers, the fucked up friends we hope to fix. Momma did her best to fix Eunice, even took off work for two days, paid for the gas, hotel--everything--and drove her to the hospital in Jackson so she could get on the list for a liver transplant.

I doubt Eunice got the transplant. How could she have ever afforded it? And anyway, Momma put her down a year or so later because the poor hairdresser got depressed and turned back to the bottle. That made my momma so mad that she swore she'd never talk to her again, and I don't think she has except once, a year or so ago. She called Eunice because she had read in the paper that her momma died.

I say all of this because I've been thinking a lot about my friendship style in the past couple of weeks, and I am trying to make sense of my motivations. Taking a cue from my mother, I approached a new MA student named Eric and informed him that he will be my new best friend last week. We have hung out together every day since. I wonder if that was a creepy thing to do--to approach a relative stranger and demand mutual affection beyond the boundaries of acquaintanceship when we really are not more than acquainted at this point. I like to think I'm being proactive in the situation, and I remind myself that I've routinely done this type of thing before, just on a more discrete level. I meet people, decide I want to be friends with them, then proceed in charming them with my dazzling, albeit self-deprecating, wit. That's what I do.

But I hope my motivations are pure. I really do believe they are, but I always worry that I try to orchestrate too much in my life instead of allowing things to develop organically. I like to be in control of what happens to me, y'all, because I feel like if I don't take my life by the reigns, surely someone else will. I'm a chronic rehearser, I come from a family of planners, and, like my momma and daddy before me, I weigh all the options before making decisions. It's my legacy.

Maybe this friendship style is, too.

Absorbing the Cost

For years now I've been plagued by expensive repairs just before school starts. For any of you college students out there, you know that the beginning of the semester is also The Most Expensive Time Of The Year, which is always painfully true for me. And compounded by a plethora of other, unpredicted expenses, causes me to stress and average about 20 "WTF?!"s a minute. Allow me to elaborate.

When I was about to move to UCA for college way back in 2003, somehow the windshield of my car burst into a trillion pieces while sitting in my grandmother's driveway one hot Mississippi August day. Of course I only had liability insurance, which did not cover glass breakage, so I had to pay out of pocket in order to fix the car. $300 I'll never get back.

Then last year, when I was about to leave Good Ol' Conway for Even Better Knoxville, my car broke down near Hot Springs, from where I had to be towed, a new timing belt and starter had to be installed, and a whole slough of other repairs I can't quite remember except that they totaled near $800. That I'll never get back.

This year it wasn't the car that did me in (though I did have the muffler replaced a month ago), but my computer, or more specifically, my HP Pavillion Notebook whose warranty expired mere weeks before the hard drive decided to go bust. The hard drive with my syllabus and pictures and entire academic record of my first year of grad school. The computer store (a local place, thank you very much) was unable to save anything from the old hard drive, but fortunately I'd backed up most of the academic work, poems, and syllabus in Google docs. But no more pictures or Miley Cyrus songs. Good bye, summertime memories. Have fun exploring the infinite abyss with the $260 that I'll never get back.

At least in these trying times I've had the money (or good credit standing) to afford the fixes. At least I have things sorted out now, since school starts tomorrow, and ohmigod I'll be Mr. Sisk every day for the rest of my life. I've got my bearings now, and my syllabus is done, too. Those are two very important things to have your hands on.

Good luck this semester, y'all. Of course I'll keep you updated on the teaching life.

Snippets (with a nod to C.D. Wright)

In another universe, I might would be the ankle-sprained member of a women's Olympic gymnastics team. The spirited stunter with a heart of gold, enthusiasm to spare, who would see her team to victory had she not torn her ACL dancing the Cupid Shuffle in the locker room shower. Out of the way already, toots. So close, but still no gold.

When I was seventeen, all I wanted to be was Winona Ryder's character in Mermaids. Charlotte, the confused, slightly macabre, too-smart-for-her-own-good teenager whose life is drastically changed for the better after she loses her virginity to the handyman in the belfry of the convent next door. I wanted to scream out the window of a stolen car, "I want to live a violently exciting life!"

A violently exciting life is not something one can plan. I'm young and naive and a pretty bad poet, but I've learned at least that much from living the life of a Compulsive Rehearser.

Sometimes, when I'm rehearsing aloud to myself, I answer back in different voices. You think I'm not as crazy when I do that.

You think I'm more crazy when I admit that I've lied extensively about the number of people I've slept with. Or perhaps you'll think lying about sex is the curse of youth. Either way, I'm a liar and you still like me.

If this were Mississippi and over there was the Mississippi River, the humidity would uppercut us, leave us gasping. Instead it's a beautiful day in East Tennessee, cloudy, 65 degrees. A change could make me cry.

I'm not the weepy type, but were I, I'd cry in front of you. Only so you'd pet me. Instead I write and bebop and lie in catatonic states. I'm pretty busy.


*I've been trying to mimic C. D. Wright's poem, but all I can get down is tone, not style. Yesterday a friend told me I should write prose more, and though I've never envisioned myself as a prose writer, I gave it a shot with my "Snippets." Maybe, if I can muster the craftsmanship, I can go back in and make my paragraphs ghazals. Then Galway Kinnell would love me.