Bicycles, as in being like the riding of

I think I need two blogs ... one for my diary-type entries for the benefit of friends and family, and one as an outlet for my various rants and editorializing. It feels strange, rereading yesterday's post, to be now writing about my first day of teaching ...

Two blogs. Tempting, but this already has much of the feel of a useful proscrastination device. Two blogs and I think tenure would already be in jeopardy. So everyone will just have to accept that every so often I'll be going off on something or other.

But before switching topics, a vintage Jon Stewart line from last night's show: "Did the government do nearly enough for the victims of Katrina? Short answer, no. Long answer, NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"


Ahem. So, yes, I had my first two classes at MUN today ... and was terribly nervous, at least for the first. My hands were actually trembling as I handed out the syllabus. But then I started to warm up a bit and got back into the classroom groove. It was made easier by the fact that the first classes are kind of paint-by-numbers -- Hi, I'm the prof (or "content provider," I think we're called these days), here's the syllabus, don't hand in papers late, don't plagiarize, etc etc. I've pretty much got the patter down, as anyone who's taken more than one class with me can probably attest. I always find a way to work the word "fuck" in there just to keep them on their toes.

They seem like good groups ... very affable, very keen. Interestingly, my introductory survey course was much more forthcoming on the "what did you read this summer?" question, whereas the third-year course on American drama -- who are all, presumably, actually declared English majors -- had almost nothing to say. Except for one girl who listed about five substantial novels, including Brave New World and Moby Dick. Seriously ... who reads Moby Dick over the summer holidays? I was impressed, but in hindsight I wonder if the rest of the class' recalcitrance was because they were worried about looking bad next to their classmate.

In a previous post, I mentioned in passing the new "variables" that would make this experience rather different from Western. Here are the ones I've sussed out so far:

1. Newfoundland's economic history makes for a very broad cross-section of students. Many are first-generation university students, i.e. they're the first in their family to ever do post-secondary education. How this plays out will be interesting to see: at UWO, I would estimate that 90-95% of students come from parents who went to university (often Western!), and in many cases had grandparents who did the same. On the other hand, there are a lot of students who come from the upper echelons of Newfoundland's economic strata, mostly from St. John's where, as the provincial capital, there are a lot of government jobs.
2. Newfoundland's demographics are such that about half the people in the province live in St. John's, but there are literally hundreds of tiny towns and outports of a few thousand or even a few hundred people. One of my students comes from a town of 250; she said that her intro to chemistry class last year was larger than her home town.
3. I want to know what crazy-ass administrator decided that fifty students constitutes a "small" class.
4. I'm not allowed to take attendance. Or more specifically, it's a university rule that you cannot build an attendance/ participation grade into the course. However, because of this, I was strongly encouraged by senior faculty to change the line "You must come to class" to "You should come to class" in my syllabus; I was also informed that consistently taking attendance all semester, if for nothing else than as a way to learn names, could lead a more litigious student to appeal a grade based on the premise that his repeated absence was used prejudicially against him. Which makes me want to know: when does failing to make allowances for a student's idiocy become grounds for appeal?

Overall, it was a good day. I'd forgotten how exhausting lecturing is. Afterward, I drove down to Water street to treat myself to a meal out and, more importantly, a pint of Guiness. I've discovered (for me) the three times at which beer is at its most delicious: (1) after a day of sailing; (2) after the rehearsal or performance of a play; (3) after a lecture.