3:00 a.m.: Up to go find a blanket. 4:00 a.m.: Still wide awake, listening to strange thumps and creature-sounds. 5:00 a.m. on the nose: Howler monkeys just outside the cabin start roaring at each other. 6:00 a.m.: Give up on sleep once and for all and take a shower. 6:30 a.m.: Capuchin monkeys replace howlers as I sit on the front porch observing. All around is monkey poop. I hope it doesn’t land on my […]
Read moreCategory: Teaching
Absent-Minded Professor
The muse is eluding me. I keep attempting to kick off a new entry, but I get only a bunch of duddy sentences. Just look at these: Do you know how hard teaching is? I’m finally back at work, after nearly nine months’ absence. You should have seen my nightmare the other night. Let’s talk about nightmares. First, the nocturnal variety: I was in a first-floor motel room, with no idea how I got there, […]
Read moreBaby’s First Job
On Tuesday, May 23, 2012, Lulu started a new job. She has had some important jobs before now, but this is her first post-graduate Big Girl job, and she found it all by herself. She is editor and producer for care2.com, “the largest online community for healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare.” It is a dangerous place to visit, a sea of time-sucking vortexes. I found, for example, a collection of videos […]
Read moreI Feel Boring
It’s been a hard week, this last of the semester, with a persistent plagiarizer, a near mutiny about my final being unfairly difficult, and pleading students emitting buckets of tears because of not passing the class. I’m too soft-hearted not be be bothered, but too serious to succumb to pressure. I asked my students to complete a survey about my classes. Here is a sampling of their comments: I can learn very good ,important,common,grammar.I must […]
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