Anniversaries

Ten years ago this week, I taught my first class. As I waited outside the building, in new linen pants and blazer, the department chair (whom I knew from a class the previous semester) walked by and asked if I was in fact going in for the first time.

"Yup," I said. "today my first class, and in 25 years, I'll be department chair, just like you."

Pause.

"Yeeaahhhh...." he said...dubious.

Fifteen years left to make good on that promise.

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Twelve years ago this week, I walked into the first class of my first seminar. That course on Modern Drama was taught by my future advisor. I sat down next to an attractive woman whom I would later marry. How many other people do you know can claim they met two of the most influential people in their lives (in different ways) in the same moment?

Brain Space

Thus is my semester, already a week old:

Today, in the space of a few hours, I taught some sections of Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; the George Aiken melodrama version of Uncle Tom's Cabin; and two stories by Jorge Luis Borges--"The Garden of Forking Paths," and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote."

You'll understand if I don't have much time to blog for a bit.

Bloggy Break

If you couldn't tell from the already three-week hiatus, I'm taking a little bloggy break. Writing deadlines, new course preps (one at the last minute), and at least one new service responsibility, plus some big family issues are all brewing. Hopefully after the deadlines pass and the semester settles in in early September, I'll be back, fer sure.