I've been so lazy and so busy that I haven't posted here for weeks now! The first semester has been flying along, now about half over. Here are some memories from the last few weeks.
A funny girl in a first-year Interactive English class (for architecture majors) who gave a speech introducing her family's dog, whom she called Kobayashi Mokko. We laughed because her family name is Kobayashi, so she was definitely including her pet among her family members. I asked her if she used her dog's full name when she was scolding her and her given name when playing with and walking her, and she said yes. A slouching under-performing blond-dyed hair boy in second-year Reading and Writing class for Commerce majors sitting in the front (right in front of me) reading a manga on his smart phone while I was teaching, till I scolded him for it, and then realized he had his mask pulled down around his neck so I scolded him for that. The English Conversation first-year English majors doing a great job talking with each other in pairs, finding out everything they could about their partners in thirty minutes, then telling a new partner about their first partner for fifteen minutes, then giving reports about their second partner's first partner, etc., all nice and lively and full of character and effort. My graduate school class for our only first-year MA student, plus my PhD student as TA and my second-year MA student as unofficial participant talking about Stuart Little. They have a sense for the charming and humorous points of the great, compact novel, and it's fun having that class to start each work week. My American Culture class for third- and fourth-year English majors, covering various topics related to American freedom, like "The Star-Spangled Banner" (flag and anthem), the Statue of Liberty, Memorial Day, supermarkets, and school uniforms, etc. I really like all fifty students in the class and enjoy greeting them by name one by one to start each class and enjoy ending my work week with them (it's my last class each week). My second-year Pharmacy major Reading and Writing class being generally charming and neat and on the ball. Ugh--meetings! A Humanities meeting followed by a graduate school meeting lasting from 4:30 till 7:30 one Wednesday; an English department meeting followed by a full-professor English department meeting lasting from 4:30 till 8:30 another Wednesday... Funny thing: I realized the other day that when a student removes his/her mask to get a drink of water etc., and I happen to look at them while looking around the room while teaching etc., my eyes inadvertently dodge away from their face in embarrassment, as though I'd just seen them naked or in their underwear! ANYWAY, so far so good. The second half will be much harder than the first, because my duty as part of the Entrance Examination team this year kicks in after May ends and lasts intensely till into July. And the heat and humidity are just getting going. But as long as I don't catch Covid (knock on wood), this year should be survivable.
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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