It’s about midterm. I love my job. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my job. And my students. My students! My wonderful, immature, intelligent, excited students! I got the first batch of papers back – they did a little better than I was expecting. I got the first batch of tests back, too, and they were rather good.

My students comment sometimes about how happy and bubbly I am. I’m not always that way -- it’s just that I LOVE TEACHING CLASS. Sometimes I just sit in my office and laugh and laugh at the thought that they’re actually paying me to do this! I mean, look at the facts: I teach four classes a week, averaging around 20-25 students per class. These are all on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesdays and Thursdays I do – nothing! Not one blessed thing! And next week I get Fall Break – a week off to do as I please! And then we have Christmas Break – virtually an entire month to sip cider and read books! And then Spring Break, and then – and then – it’s like they say, “Oh, here you go, little English teacher! You obviously need more time to read books and watch the rain. TAKE THE NEXT THREE MONTHS OFF. We’ll even keep sending you a paycheck. If you really need money, you can teach summer school, but then we’d have to pay you over and above your normal salary.”

And what is it I teach? Well, pretty much, I just get to talk about Flannery O’Connor, T. S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and other luminaries for fifty minutes. This is broken up by the occasional forays into grammar, word usage, and punctuation (plug for the hilarious book: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Best book on punctuation EVAR!1!! No, really. I’m not joking. Read it.) Okay, so grading papers is sort of a drag. But only sort of. Compared to my previous jobs, even grading papers is an improvement. And like I said above, the papers weren’t quite as bad as I was expecting. (Teaching Freshman Comp at UGA cured me of any fantasies I had about good freshman writers.)

But it’s not just the classes. I love all the extracurricular activities, too. Last week, I went with a group of students (about half of them were in one of my classes) to the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta to watch Macbeth. It was great. Afterwards, we stopped at Krispy Kreme to eat fresh, hot donuts during our (2-hour) ride back to our Small College Town in Northeast Georgia. I spent about an hour talking about literature to my students, who had all sorts of questions about Tolkien, Shakespeare, and other stuff that I talk my head off about if anyone gives me half an opportunity.

A couple of weeks ago, I went whitewater rafting on the Chatooga river with the college’s Outdoor Club. We got to go over a Class V rapids! I got dumped in the drink a couple of times, but that’s part of the fun. The Outdoor Club is supposed to be doing a caving trip sometime soon – I can’t wait to do that!