Over the past couple months it seems I’ve taken up sleepwalking and sleeptalking. Sometimes I think Yo-Nenny’s gaslighting me with her reports of my nocturnal conversations, yet they ring true. Several nights ago at about midnight, I was sound asleep with Emmy cradled in the crook of my arm. As her mother reached to remove her, apparently I said: “Nooooo. You can’t take her. I was just teaching her the first conditional. She understands it […]
Read moreCategory: Teaching
A Woman Obsessed
I never wanted to think about teaching all the time. But once I began my ESL studies, I couldn’t stop. Like, last summer I went to the Guggenheim and all I could see were English-teaching ideas. Now when I look around my house, I don’t see my treasures; I see teaching ideas. “I wonder how I could incorporate a Pee Wee Herman talking doll into my class.” Unconsciousness doesn’t change things. Eleni’s presence during my […]
Read moreGrow Up, Teacher!
I wish I were more mature. Last week I had my students bring in one word that they’d heard and learned in recent days. Hans brought peephole. “Okay, now give me a sentence with peephole in it, so the others can guess what it means.” He thought for a moment, and then spoke. “I can see Stanley through my peepeehole.” I totally lost it. He looked completely baffled. I put my head into my hands. […]
Read moreThe Parting Glass
I don’t have time to do literary justice to my trip to Vietnam. All I can manage are representative threads. Graves Eleni said I haven’t told you yet about the graves in rural Vietnam. All-righty, then. Let’s take care of that. In the Mekong Delta, graves sprout up in the rice paddies like massive weeds: concrete slabs sloping into green. There’s no uniform layout. The graves lie like pick-up sticks, pointing in all directions. Some […]
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