August 25, 2009

Starting Again and a New Gig

Today was my first day back on campus. I started bright and early at 8 a.m. and like last fall, most of my students were already in their seats when I arrived at 7:55 a.m. My first class is all freshman and they came sleepy-eyed and semi-excited, but with a good deal of cautiousness as well.

I thought things were going great and then I asked if there were any questions and one of my students shot her hand straight up in the air.

“I live really far away,” she said, “so if someone dies or something at home, I won’t be here for a couple days.”

The other students looked around uncomfortably. Truly this was a weird “question” to have.

“Well,” I said, “it’s kind of a bad idea to start planning excuses to miss class and/or deaths to miss class on the first day of class. How about we just play it by ear and see what happens?”

Her face flushed a little bit and everyone chuckled a bit. I didn’t mean to call her out but what was I supposed to say? “Well, if someone dies, then by all means, miss as much class as you want.”

I mean seriously. Already we’re starting with the one dead grandparent per semester. The first day? Really?

My speech class arrived next and they seemed like an interesting and fun group right from the start. We did a silly getting-to-know-each-other activity and one of my new students stood up and demonstrated the oddities about his body. He showed us what ribs look like when you break them and don’t get them reset. One word: weird.

He showed us how he doesn’t have muscle up in his left pec area and when he pounded on it, he sounded almost hollow. Stranger yet.

He also showed us that he can throw his knee completely out, and then he proceeded to hop in a circle almost completely around his now-thrown-out-kneed leg. Having recovered from an ACL reconstruction and watching that much motion almost made me have to put my head between my knees and find a paper bag or something. Thank God he had jeans on when he did it or I would have been on the floor.

It is definitely going to be an interesting couple of months and not only for those reasons.

A friend of mine started a new blog called Bullsnballs. It’s not about bulls balls, so don’t be scared. It’s actually about sports and stocks, and yours truly happens to be writing a fantasy football column over there as well (to be debuting soon). Please go visit and say hello! Even if you have no interest in stocks and sports, you have to go just to see the design of the site, which was done by my fabulous designer as well. Feel free to link to him with reckless abandon.

And don’t forget to go vote for me today too! Please and thank you!