Leaning Into the Wind

1.4.2010 Monday
It appears that a number of my students have gained a few pounds over the past two weeks. I guess it’s comforting to know that that particular Christmas tradition holds true wherever it’s celebrated. I wonder if Jesus thought his birthday would still be celebrated 2000 years later by hundreds of millions of the faithful getting bloated and waddling to church. All in all, I can think of much worse legacies to leave.

1.8.2010 Friday
Well, they told us this was the windy season, and they weren’t lying! After almost daily rainstorms during the second half of December, the skies dried up and the wind came and hasn’t let up. It’s a lot cooler on average, but there are a few below-neutral side effects as well. The first run I went on with Peter upon our return seemed easier than I had anticipated initially; we hadn’t done much besides eating and having the occasional beer for two weeks, but the first half seemed fine, heading south down toward the airport.

We hit the end of the runway and turned around, and suddenly, instead of the pleasant prevailing breeze from the north to which I have grown accustomed, I felt like I was standing behind a jet preparing to take off. Every stride I took, it seemed I was losing a step before I hit the ground again. Peter, essentially a fitter, more aerodynamic version of me, turned his baseball cap backwards and jaunted off into the sunset as I gasped and wheezed in the headwind. Killin’ me.

Additionally: the cross-breeze in my room, normally a blessing during the hot months, takes on new malevolent fury in this windy season, making classroom decorations nearly impossible to maintain. Every thing that can catch wind does, and I come in every morning and my room looks like it has been trashed. I’ve given up the battle as lost, so for now, the beautiful posters of my mom’s paintings are coming down, until nature’s wrath is spent. The class contract has ended up on the floor, as well, and shockingly, my students are acting…well, exactly the same.

1.14.2010 Thursday
Last night, laying on my bed with my eyes open, thinking about my students and classes, I realized I unconsciously assign each of my units, and each of my classes, a metaphor. Whether it’s definite and indefinite articles, count and non-count nouns, or peer editing, each takes the form of a three-mast sailing ship in my head. Additionally, it may not be this clear, but the group of kids determines the quality of ship; my best class appears as a sturdy and maneuverable frigate, able to take anything I throw at them and change directions easily, while my slowest group can hardly get from point A to point B, a flimsy, lumbering Man O’ War Made in China.

Each unit is like a voyage across the ocean, and now that I think of it, I guess that makes me Poseidon. So I, God of the Oceans, throw a unit at them (keep a weather eye, kids; here be the place that the metaphor totally breaks down), and do my best to guide them to the end. Or perhaps I’m the captain, trying to get a little freaking work out of a mutinous crew. I wonder if keelhauling would be looked down upon in this seafaring nation of theirs.

At the end of the unit, the ship is usually limping into harbor with tattered sails, although occasionally there is a triumphant entrance at full sail. If the subject was tough and the class was 11C (my slowest), upon taking the unit test the ship might sink with all hands in the harbor…the best attitude to take in this situation is to forget about the failures of the past and look into raising a new crew. Onward and upward!