Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!

Ok, so it's not February 10th but who knows if I'll get a chance to post again on that exact date! This is close enough. But, Cindi...what's Feb. 10th? (I hear you ask) Why, my darling children, that is the birthdate of the late-great James Francis Durante...also known as The Schnoz. Yeah, that's right...I'm a bottomless well of useless factoid trivia. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

I started this post earlier in between my classes today and it quickly turned into an "I hate everybody and teaching sucks!" rant. I found that I was tired and cranky. Deciding that perhaps tired and cranky was not the best mood to be in when one seeks to entertain...or at least inform, I decided to break for lunch. Then I got busy. Everybody and their dog is looking for me today. It's midterm week and all the lazies who haven't been to class in five weeks are trying to hunt me down and explain why they deserve a chance to turn in all the work they've missed. Not to mention that I gave my midterm exam in my "Intro to Drama" class. I have frantic phone calls from three students who missed the exam. Two had just been involved in car accidents and one girl has pink eye. So I called everyone back today and, with the proper documentation, they'll be able to make it up. I also got an e-mail from a student in one of my composition classes. He missed class today because he has tuberculosis but he's planning to be in class on Thursday. I was like, "Dude...STAY HOME." Geez.

But I'm off on a tangent...what was I talking about? Oh yeah...I hate teaching. Well, not really. But that's how I felt this morning. I hated everything this morning. Too many people trying to hunt me down, not enough time in the day to sleep, not enough money to buy a playstation portable (I swear that thing's going on my bridal registry!!!!) , not enough time to buy a donut before class, too much homework to grade, not enough room in my bag for all the junk I have to carry around...you name it and I complained about it in my head this morning. Then - to top it ALL off - we got copies of last semester's teaching evaluations in our mailboxes today. I picked mine up when I went to make copies of the quiz I'm giving tomorrow and groaned to myself. Last semester I was working full time at the museum and teaching a full load of classes. I was tired and cranky 98% of the time (it's true...ask Mike), I never had any time to prepare anything extra or (in my opinion) all that interesting for the classes, I was never at school unless I had to teach that day...I was sure that my students hated me last quarter. Or at least felt like I was completely incompetent. I mean, none of them took their classes seriously, I couldn't get anybody to read anything ahead of time for class and getting them to turn in homework was like pulling teeth! Whitney Houston may believe that these children are our future but I was NOT convinced. I decided that today couldn't POSSIBLY get any worse, so I tore open my evaluation envelope. Wonder of wonders...they freakin' LOVED me last quarter. I got a 4.81 out of 5 in my College Reading classes and 4.78 out of 5 for Speech! Not only that...but these kids (most of whom I wasn't sure were even literate) wrote COMMENTS on the sheets. I would like to sample a few of my favorites:

"Very respectful of our feelings"
"I think she is really nice and respectful to everyone in the class"
"Miss Harris is an excellent instructor. She provided the class with the knowledge needed."
"She relates to us."

And I got five that said:
"She is a very good teacher."

I did get one guy (I know it's anonymous, but you can't tell me this isn't a guy) who gave this suggestion as a way to improve our College Reading course, "Less reading." Um...dude. The class is called College READING.

So I decided that perhaps these children may be our future. (Sing it, Whitney...'Teach them well and LET them lead the way') After all, they do have great taste in teachers.