Here We Go Again

After taking a semester off from teaching, last spring, I eased back into it with a summer creative writing class. I only got thrown that welcome bone because the two "real" creative writing professors don't want to teach in the summer. Yeah. No kidding. I remember that life. Getting paid during the leisurely summer, back at that real job I had.

But, whining aside, I was very grateful for that class. First of all, there were only nine students enrolled, and they were all women. We started out with 10 students, including 1 guy who was too much of a wussie to read his writing out loud. (Duh. It's a writing workshop.) So he bolted. I'd had him in class before, and I can truly say I have never met a student with less ambition. I was glad to see him go. THEN we had eight weeks of incredibly good writing workshops. I gave them somewhat personal topics to write about and they eagerly sunk their teeth in. For instance, "Please write 800 words on this: If you could get inside any one person's head, what would you try to find out, and what do you think THEY would want you to find out." Their chosen subjects ranged from "my biological mother who gave me up" to "my dog" to "my lazy boyfriend" to "my father who hasn't spoken to me in twenty years" to "my yogi." The lazy boyfriend, by the way, was the guy who dropped the class.

Two of my students were 40 years old, and every person in the class was motivated and creative and someone I was thankful to have crossed paths with. I'd had to miss the first week of the summer session, staying in Indiana after my sister's husband was killed. I was very glad to be with my sister that extra week, but by the time I got back to Phoenix (hey...that could be a song) I was desperately in need of some combination of work and rejuvenation. Meeting with those 9 women twice a week was the perfect mix. It also helped that it was an evening class, allowing me to hole up at home during the days and sneak out to see other humans at night. The whole thing was the answer to a prayer. Actually it was the answer "no." Because I'd prayed that the class, very under-enrolled, would be cancelled. I didn't think I'd be able to walk into a classroom in June, for many reasons. Many versions of loss.

God said "You're teaching it. Buck up."

Enter: fall semester. Back to my regular assignment, Freshman Composition. I won't go into my love/detest relationship with it. You've heard it all before. I'll just give you a little classroom exchange.

There's a painfully good looking boy in the class. 18 years old, sparkly blond hair, beautiful blue eyes with a startling glassy look about them. Matthew. The girls stare at him like he's a puppy who will at any moment lick him widdle paw and make them all eek with pleasure. Or at least that's how they were looking at him before he spoke.

I gave the class their first assignment, asking them to write a paper representing themselves through six objects. At some point I said "Literarily speaking, this will be a short autobiography. So please, exert some effort. Breathe some life into it. Don't make me think you're just another cog."

Matthew spoke: Wow...you just made up like two words that aren't even words.

Me: Really? And what were they?

Matthew (struggling): That "litterree" word, for one.

Me: I see. And what was the other one?

Matthew (giggling almost to the point of releasing a snort): Ha ha, "cog." Who ever heard the word "cog!"