Me, Me, Me

As a rule, I abhor blogs that are all about life's quirky little experiences. If you can't say anything original or creative about yourself and your observations or write about 'you-had-to-be-there' moments, then the reader typically doesn't really need to read it. We all grow up, we all share Odysseus moments to various degrees, and this process need not always be profound. We all need, of course, to reach out and hope someone gives a damn, and many such moments are worth sharing, but having recently discovered the practical inanity that goes hand-in-hand with the awesome undiscovered potential of websites like myspace.com as someone who is compelled to keep up a perpetual blog on this fine free internet service, I can't help but cringe at the whole culture I'm now a part of. I mention this solely because this entry is another such moment concerning my own relatively inane recent school experience and I'm too lazy at present to write something even remotely profound or amusing. I mean, shit, I could be busy being bothered by others' tripe instead of producing my own. Oh well, let's just get on with it...

I've had a hell of a third term. I'm slowly realizing that I'm one of the 'easy' teachers, soft on classroom management, and that I'm probably the worst at getting grades back to students. I thought I had earlier in the year won over those 'in-between' kids who could either become decent students or students who don't care. Turns out I'm a pretty shitty teacher. I feel like I never put in enough time preparing interesting lessons and grading and whatnot, and it's starting to catch up. I'm attempting for the rest of the year to keep up better, but I'm already meeting some pretty strong resistance from my students - I've lulled myself into a bit too much inactivity and selfishness. One of my students recently talked with me for awhile during my off period and told me exactly that. I'm spending too much time on peripheral issues like studying my own Greek and Latin, reading, GRE practice, speanding time with the girlfriend and other friends, etc. and not enough on classroom issues. But there I go again justifying my life instead of leading a proactive one - can't wait to return to the Lord of the Flies island as a helpless Ralph again tomorrow.

I guess I'm just pretty tired and stuck in a rut. Now that I'm rededicating myself to maturing into the proverbial good teacher I want to be, I'm realizing that I'm being a waste of space more than anything else and it's more difficult than I first realized to break that habit. I've already got Mississippi in my rear view mirror, and both my students and I are suffering for that. Not that I'm even thinking for an instant of quitting or permitting myself to 'fail' here for a second year, but I sure would like to be done in this place with a spot secure somewhere in the Acme University Department of Classics for Fall 2007. Thank God for the time being I can be 'productive' by writing a blog for 'graduate school'. Awesome.