Welcome

As most of you may know, I've been working as an part-time professor at Augusta State University this semester, bringing in a little money and beefing up the resume with some teaching experience. A host of things have surprised and entertained me about teaching: how much you start to care about the little bastards and how well they do in your class; that lecturing in front of teenagers is a relatively nerve-free activity; that my students seem to like me despite the fact that I really stick it to them at quiz time; how hard they're willing to work to do well in my class; how much they relate a bad test grade in my class to their overall worth as college students and human beings; how disappointed I get when they don't do well; that fact that I really can tell when they cheat; how much I'm learning about grammar as I undergo my own cram sessions before I have to teach it to my students; and the relative worthlessness of a high school education in Georgia.

What is perhaps not so surprising is my recent realization that I am hopelessly out of date when it comes to internet facebooking/blogging/my spacing/etc. I'll be honest; I just don't get all that shit. However, in an effort to overcome my fuddy-duddiness and become more "with it" and "hip" (I suppose my use of these words automatically excludes me from the realm of the "with it" and "hip," but whatever), I am inaugurating this blog. It represents my effort to simultaneously immerse myself in the world of my students and in the world of internet opinion-generating in an attempt to figure out what the hell the fuss is all about.

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Update: Why does this welcome post come long after the first postings listed here? Allow me to explain the chronology. This is my third incarnation of this blog. It began on Yahoo 360 in 2006 when my husband and I were living in Germany. I created a new blog when we moved back to the States (to Georgia) - the source of the measly few posts from 2007, including this welcome post. Then I abandoned it utterly until early 2008 when we moved to Washington State, at which point I took up blogging serious-like. Got that? Good.

Go Baby Go

If you haven't yet had the opportunity to view Ben Affleck's excellent new film, Gone Baby Gone (yes, I did just use the words "Ben Affleck" and "excellent new film" in the same sentence; and no, it isn't a typo) then verily I say unto you, "Get thee to the theatre." Don't go without provisions, however; you'll need some kind of chocolate product from the concession stand to be eaten periodically throughout the movie to raise your endorphin levels. Cause this film is a downer. It's not a Leaving Las Vegas either-shoot-me-now-or-give-me-an-ice-cream-sundae-cause-I'm-that-depressed kind of downer, but it certainly isn't a date movie.

That being said, it's still an excellent film. Amazingly, Affleck is significantly better as a director than he is as an actor. Even more amazingly, his little brother is completely believable in the film as a gritty detective getting his first shot at disillusionment on the heals of a big case. I won't let the cat out of the bag and spoil the end for you in this posting; although you may see it coming, it's still a fascinating twist. For those of you who have already seen the movie, I'll be typing my thoughts on the movie's ending in an upcoming post.