August 26, 2008

Freshman are Freshman are Freshman

I arrived this morning on campus shaking like a leaf. I was the exact same way on my first day of teaching high school freshman many years ago. My class started at 8 a.m. and I was approaching the classroom at 7:50 a.m. this morning. Because my schedule was switched only days ago, my room was also changed. I walked right past my room because it was full. That class had to already be in progress, right? No one is going to be at least 10 minutes early to an 8 a.m. class right?

Wrong.

I walked past the room, stopped and walked backwards and peeked in. I walked in completely dazed and confused and said, "Are you all here for Composition class?" They nodded in agreement.

"What?!? Didn’t anyone tell you people that when you have an 8 a.m. college course, you’re supposed to arrive at 7:59 a.m.?"

They laughed and looked at me like I was nuts. If I made it to my 8 a.m. classes in college, it was with seconds to spare and only because I had slept in my clothes the night before. I shared that little piece of knowledge with them and then went searching for another table and more chairs. I have 24 students in this writing class. I’m going to have a lot of papers to grade.

By the time they were half way through their departmental assessment exam, I was feeling more relaxed. I allowed them to leave as soon as they were done and then prepared for my next course, which is a speech class. This class is smaller with only 19 students. I have many student athletes and some very interesting other students as well. The composition course will be a challenge to teach because of the subject manner. Making bibliographies interesting is next to impossible. The speech course’s challenges will come more from the students.

I had one guy try to sleep through the syllabus stuff. I called him out and he was bright eyed after that. I had another interesting young man who has been home-schooled his entire life. This is his first time in a classroom. My friend, Renovation Girl, told me that going back to teaching is like riding a bike and I think she is right. It felt mostly natural and I think it will be a good semester. It’s funny though. College freshman are just like 9th grade freshman, but in bigger packages. I thought they’d seem so grown up, but they’re just kids.

Either that or I’m getting older. Let’s go with the "just kids" scenario.

I’m hoping that the nerves I had today will be gone on Thursday when I go back for the second class. I’m also hoping that getting up that early starts to suck less. I am so not a morning person.

On another subject entirely, I haven’t been able to kick much butt or even pretend to since having ACL surgery. But apparently there are enough of you who want to support a woman making a fashion statement in a gi. I’m in the top 12 as of right now over at Hotbloggercalendar.com. I’m shocked, flattered, and realizing that you, my fantastic readers, totally rock (Like I didn’t already know this long ago). So, if you haven’t voted yet, please go cast your vote for me; and thanks a million to those who have already gone to cast a vote for women kicking butt in the martial arts everywhere. I think I need to start selling t-shirts that say "Girls in gi’s are hot."

And while I’m on the subject of "hot". . . there’s a hot new martial arts blog that I know you’ll want to check out. Ikigaiway.com is a site for all martial artists, written by a very dear friend and teacher of mine. His insights into the martial arts are always interesting and thought provoking. His blog header is reason alone to go and check him out (Hello, may I please have the name and number of your designer???). So when you get sick and tired of waiting for me to actually talk about something martial arts related, go and visit Ikigai. Tell him BBM sent you!