Notes From the End of the Semester

1. I am finding that the problem with assigning 15-20 page final papers is that I then have to read them. Some of them are very good, don't get me wrong. But it takes a really long time, even without making very many comments since most of them won't ever pick them up.

2. I wish I could just teach activist history courses forever. This environmental history course I taught this semester has been great. Committed students, excited to be there, good things to say. Next semester, I guess I am teaching 3 activist based courses--US/Latin America comparative environmental history, Hurricane Katrina in Historical Perspective, and Work and Workers Movements in US History. Should be fun.

3. I find myself really honing my teaching persona. It's all an act, or at least an accentuation of already existing personality traits for performance effect. This is particularly true with my survey course, where I will wander off into tangents about visiting the place in Tennessee where Meriweather Lewis shot himself in the face, discussing how prostitutes became known as "hookers," or talking about how Johnny Appleseed spread all those apples for booze. Point is that I portray myself as a very nerdy guy with a penchant for weird stories about the past. Again, this is not inaccurate, but definitely amplified. I am nerdy and do like talking about weird shit after all. Related to this is that I am also getting the reputation as the kind of professor who you can get off on a tangent and will talk for a long time about it. But I can't help it--my whole life is a series of tangents loosely circling around a mythical central point. Many of them are Pluto-esque--are they actually related to the central point? Not sure myself.

4. While I like my students, there are lots of people I'm glad I don't teach. I was sitting in the school's coffee shop area yesterday doing some grading. These three sorority women are at the next booth. Stupider than a sack of hammers, let me tell you. One thing about students at my school is that they are upper-middle class suburban kids with very limited outside world experience or even basic understanding about people not like them. Not all, but many. Anyway, these women are talking about this "hippie" professor they had. The evidence--she had a tattoo on her chest and she once worked, "in, like, a thrift store or something," as if this kind of job was completely outside their worldview. They had no idea what the difference is between a hippie and a hipster. To make it worse, they started badmouthing some other professor and then one of them, having reached the proper froth, decided to take that moment to do her online course evaluation of said professor. I can only imagine what they say about me. Good times.

5. One very cool and kind of weird thing about being at a small school is the close interactions between students and faculty. One of my students is taking care of my cat next week when I am at a wedding. At New Mexico, I would have been scared to invite my students into my home. I was eating lunch by myself today in the school dining area and a couple of students just came and sat with me and chatted. One of them I have not had in any classes but I just know from around. It's all very different for me but in an entirely positive way. I also find myself becoming a kind of magnet for lefty and alternative-type students. Of course this is intentional to some extent but also quite welcome, particularly that it is happening by the end of my first semester.

Well, I guess that's about it. Back to the grading. Erik's Friday night--always a hot time!