Sunday, November 02, 2003

I think that I have forgotten how to think about being a teacher. I really have so much to do today-- like new seating charts for my classes, an entire unit for poetry, etc. I really want to make them love poetry the way that I love poetry and I have a lot of good ideas, but it would be very easy for me to be lazy and just do book work. The thing is, when I try to do exciting things, the kids go nuts. Like I have all of these dreams of playing music and relating poetry to folk songs and things, but all of these things go easily out of hand. I can picture putting on some of my favorite songs that I consider amazing poetry and having all of them bitch and whine about how they hate my music and why can't we listen to 50 Cent, etc. That will break my heart.

But I think I am going to try it anyway. I think I am going to go to the coffee shop or the library in Rocky Mount (which is actually quite big and nice) and just buckle down. This is what I think, even though I have been doing nothing but cleaning my apartment like a madwoman and emailing people all morning. The cleaning was necessary...I guess the emailing, too, works to keep me a bit sane.

Last night as I was driving to Rocky Mount kind of late, I came very close to hitting a deer while going 70 miles an hour. This brought back this summer when Owen and I did actually hit a deer going 70 miles an hour and even more recently the fact that Owen dressed up as said dead deer for Halloween. It was really scary to slam on my breaks on the freeway going that fast and as I contemplated my death, I almost laughed at the irony of it. But then I did not die and neither did the deer and we are both very pleased. ¶ 9:32 AM