28 June 07

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Had a weird dream about Professor Alpha, but for the life of me I cannot now remember what it was. Something about him being finished, which only makes sense; in fact it makes so much sense that I wonder if this isn't a particularly dramatic instance of my subconscious brain filling in what my conscious brain doesn't understand or even recall.

Found out that I did quite well on my Spring teaching evaluations. It was just nine students, but... I'm taking what I'm getting.

Got from one of my students what must have been the single highest compliment this particular guy knows how to pay: he said I was really a math teacher. Close, at one time - but ha, and also thank you, Newton.

Sat listening to my students' conversation (I'd given them complete license for what I called a free-for-all), which was so smart, fiery, invested, and authentic - I didn't say a thing - that the intensity of my pride was about two minutes away from turning a mental and emotional reaction physical. I never saw that kind of discussion happen before, and I cannot believe I can try to spend my life getting paid for this stuff.

Stood by at the masters' class party chatting with a variety of people, which was lovely, especially as it grew more and more enbeered. Near the end, one of Professor Alpha's more... interesting? students corralled me and asked, among other, weirder and less reasonable questions, how I'd "gotten so lucky." Fortunately, Alpha himself was not too far away, so through a small but happy cloud of Dos Equis, I invited him without any further explanation to answer his student's "incisive question." The hilarious part was that I didn't have to identify for him what the luckiness in question consisted of. The really pleasing part was that Alpha still remembers calling me on the field that day. And the really accurate part was that he characterized me as weird. Right on, Alpha - but as you yourself have pointed out, my nutty self feels at home here, mostly because I'm surrounded with like minds!