April 23, 2009
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1 Ah, I'm gettin' old.
2 Are you gettin' old too?
3 Yeesh.
4 I got offered a drama gig at a pretty prestigious school two days ago and to be honest, I don't know that I'd want to go back to all the madness and stress of running a play.
5 Plus my parents need me to be available these days, and I need to be able to get up there at the drop of a hat.
6 I'm also gettin' young.
7 The nice thing about gettin' old is that you get young too!
8 I've had some of my best teaching moments compacted in the past six weeks, doing all sorts of creative activities, poetry readings, coffehouse gigs at school, and being addressed on students' papers as "Professor Harrington", which is a great handle. THEY are doing it, so it's fun, because I insist on teaching them college stuff, even though they're all ears and braces!
9 I've taken a lot of the efforts I used to pour into the plays, or the Class (you know who you are!) and I've re-focused the efforts and turned them into lessons. So my room now has a coffehouse feel to it. It also has Renaissance masks on the walls, clean and pretty.
10 I've loved reading the papers too. We did a mini-unit on Simon and Garfunkel as musical poets, and the kids ate it up. They all LOVED the fine old tune "Cloudy", saw the song "America" as a tune about immigration, became a little upset over "The Sound of Silence" (the title on Simon's sheet music), and felt that "Scarborough Fair" was "eerie" and "a little scary and creepy".
11 And all but one raved about "The 59th Street Bridge Song" or, as it is known by more mainstream sorts, "Feelin' Groovy". One girl asked, "The first thing I thought was what was going to happen when they reached 60th street?"
12 Ya gotta love it.
13 Anyway, it was fun bringing those fine old dusty tunes to ears for the first time. These guys dissected them up and down, like a huge fish being devoured by scurvy thieves.
14 The reviews, by the way, were "ehh" to my brightest, two of whom said it was the best lesson they had ever had. I liked that, naturally.
15 Anyway, we're having a lot of fun up there on the Chill these days, goin' poetical and creative here in late spring, and it's been a bit of a blast.
16 I've been throwing the DN out there pretty late lately, and it's been tough, but fun to keep the good ol' DN alive and kicking.
17 I just finished grading papers on and off since 3 p.m. and the past three hours without stopping. Feels pretty nice actually.
18 So.
19 Ahhhh. I'm gettin' young.
20 I don't wanna get TOO young because there's a certain point where I know I'll turn hopelessly stupid.
21 It's this Benjamin Button thing.
22 Shakespeare turns 445 this Sunday.
23 That makes me religiously young, for a Professor.
24 I'd better drag these young bones to bed.
25 Remember, you're reading this first thing in the morning, and I'm writing it last thing at night.
26 So wake up, have a nice cuppa, and enjoy this beautiful day.
27 Live life.
28 Love life.
29 Peace.
~H~
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