12 Sep 06

Time:

?

Money:

$4, "pet" food - Pepsi and a protein bar - at the gym.
$5, yogurt-and-granola and lime green tea, Space Market.
$6, mocha and muffin at the genuinely insane campus Starbucks (the caffeine and sugar were worth the wait, though.)

More interesting things:

Walked past a cute little brown-and-white dog - he looked like a Shiba Inu, actually, and in THIS city, I guess it wouldn't surprise me - tied up outside the infirmary... and spotted him a little later, trotting across WSq Park with his person.

On the subject of cross-park propulsion, incidentally, watched a young woman, probably about my age, probably also a student, SKIP down the path in front of me as I ate my lunch. Occasionally, she sort of stumbled into just plain jogging, so maybe she had to get somewhere fast and the sandals she wore made skipping more comfortable, but I hope not. I hope she just likes to enjoy her movement from place to place.

Came across one of my Wednesday classmates in the library computer lab (but didn't recognize her - oops), and met one of my Thursday ones in Space Market (I did recognize her, but we had to remind each other of our names.)

Realized that not only did I not stick out in my dark brown cowboy boots but was in fact rolling with the trend, to judge by about 14,000 undergraduates in the Starbucks line. Even if I had tried to make a point by wearing the boots outside my jeans, I would just have been among the slightly edgier 25% of the school population.

Started feeling as though I were aging right in my coffee shop chair when Anne recognized a student from her first year of teaching - SIXTH grade, might I add - in the line. Of course, Anne IS a little older than me, and it's not as if she taught kindergarten or anything, but still. It was very weird (and I can only guess what combinations of surprise, pride, comfort, etc. were hitting HER over the head), but the freshman Violet seemed very nice, and really it was a neat experience: I'm always glad to be reminded not only of what it was to start one of life's most distinctive adventures but also that it's teachers who help us get there.

Decided that maybe above all other professional characteristics, I most appreciate a professor's ability to present materials that not only somehow go with what we're supposed to learn that week but are markedly interrelated. I always admired that in Dr. B. (Johnny B.? Just plain John? I don't know), saw it many times in the Proteach folks, and now find myself assailed with evidence - on at least three fronts! - that the same will happen here. This is the quality I most want for myself as a professor, so I hope it's borne of a familiarity with the literature. (Then again, if that's all it is, how did Dr. B. divine that Wittgenstein would be exactly appropriate this semester? I don't know what trick I have to learn in order to pull that stuff off, but I hope someone will teach me before I'm done here.)

More interesting things I haven't done yet:

Gotten coffee from the Mudtruck at Astor Place. You've got to love the roach-coach air of something like that, even though I'm not a steelworker. (Neither's anyone else in that line, for that matter.)

Changed the title of this section to "More interesting things I haven't EATEN yet." I mean, I'm not going to, because one of these Saturdays I'll go out and find stuff I want to DO, not just stuff to chow down on, and anyway in this town making use of all the food-related options IS positive action. But it does occur to me that mostly I'm making a list of things to chew.