Unless you count when I was 12, and I used to force my sister and her friend to sit down and do math problems and essays and spelling tests, and yell at them when they tried to leave the "classroom," and grade their papers with a fat red crayon and write encouraging, teacherly comments on them like, "This is VERY BAD work!"

Yeah. "Teacher" was my favorite game. Was it theirs? Not so much. I left the red crayon at home today.

I got up in the morning at eight, and then checked the traffic to see if I should drive or BART in. (My default option is to drive. It's cheaper, quicker, and I have a faculty parking spot.) (Can I just add that being referred to as "faculty" is intensely weird?) Traffic sounded okay, but I left at 8:30 anyway. (My class was at 10.) I was paranoid about being late on my first day teaching.

So of course, I got to school an hour early. Then I was left to just sit around getting more and more nervous as the hour wore away. I dressed in my failsafe outfit of jeans and a blazer. I thought a blazer would made me look professorial. Who knows if it worked, but everyone who walked in seemed to assume I was the teacher. So, yay. Point for me.

I already knew three of my students. One of them is a classmate of mine in another class-- weird. One of them is Probst's roommate and a friend of ours-- very weird. And one of them is Probst's roommate's friend, who I met at a party. Weird also.

You may remember I was worried about having the requisite five number of students. There were six names signed up on the registration list, but only three had officially registered. As it turned out, I didn't have to worry: I have ten students! That's right! Ten! That's just right-- that would have been my cutoff number for a workshop.

Two students turned up in my classroom because their Friday morning class in that building had been canceled. They weren't sure if they were going to stay, but at the break, both of them had me sign their add/drop forms. They both decided to stay in the class. (It must have been the blazer.)

The class is three boys and seven girls. We did introductions at the beginning and had a couple of discussions during class, and except for one or two people, everyone seemed to have no problem speaking up and stating their opinion-- and I bet those couple of shyer people will warm up as class gets going. I anticipate a good group workshop dynamic-- which was somewhat beyond my control, so I'm relieved.

One guy needs to be reined in a little bit-- he tends to enjoy speaking a little much. But he came up to me after class to discuss it with me-- he said he is very outspoken and is afraid he intimidated some other students. I am glad he is able to read those social cues-- I got the feeling that some others were, if not intimidated, a little annoyed, and I'm glad he picked up on that without my having to point it out.

I was worried about having him dominate the critiques, but I did the math and discovered that I have to limit the number of people who can speak on each person's work. If everyone had one minute's worth of comments on every poem presented, we'd have a four hour class! So I am going to limit the number of verbal critiques to five, and have everyone else just give the poet back their poem with written comments. The advantage of this is that I will call on the five students, and no one person will be able to dominate.

Other than that, I have no problems. Even that guy is great-- his enthusiasm for the class is infectious. (He wrote a poem during class, about the class, and read it to us at the end-- it was great.) I genuinely like all my students, and that's lovely.

I liked when they came up and asked me questions, or talked to me about their specific concerns. One girl asked me if I would correct her spelling and grammar-- since English isn't her first language. Another girl told me she has already taken several workshops and was unsure about another one-- I suggested that if she wanted to do all of her assignments under one big theme, she could do so, just to give her an added challenge. We discussed possible themes and references for each one. I felt quite scholarly.

I also enjoyed my lecture on critique. I have definite opinions about the subject which I think are well informed. I was on sure footing there, and I had no problem finding things to say. In addition to that, I passed out and reviewed the syllabus and course requirements. And did a short lecture on Subject, and we discussed the poems in the reader.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't make some mistakes. One of the poems we read in today's class had an unfamiliar word in the title. One guy asked, "What does that word mean?" And I said, "Huh. That's the sort of thing I really should know, isn't it?" They all laughed. Then I gave them my theory as to the meaning of the word. (I've just looked it up, and my theory was wrong.) And then I promised to look it up for them.

The word is "cretonnes" which means "a heavy cotton material in colorfully printed designs, used especially for drapery and slipcovers." It was in a poem about the Odyssey's Penelope. I realized that when I read the poem, I just made an educated guess as to the meaning (I thought it referred to her suitors-- like it meant "guys from Crete.") And then I forgot about it.

This is a bad reading habit of mine. Got me in trouble. Won't happen again.

I did fine on the lecturing thing. I didn't really follow my notes-- I just sort of used them as a guideline and talked, and led a discussion. I had a couple of moments where I blanked out and had to refer to my notes. "Yeah, I said this... I said this... I said this..." I don't think that was too bad. I prefer to have more of a loose discussion class than a straight lecture class. I don't mind letting the students discuss the poems and meander where they will. Within reason, of course.

I suppose I could have been more detailed on a couple of things that I just skimmed over. And my lecture on Subject was thin, although I had reasons for that. But overall, once class got going, I was barely even nervous. I had a great time, and I think my students did too. Like I said, they're a great group. I look forward to seeing them again.

I just hope they all stick around for next week's class. (Otherwise I'll have to hunt them down one by one to tell them what "cretonnes" means.) It's only going to get better from here, I think. Woo!

Today was also my first Pound class.

My professor (who was also my Keats professor) teaches at his home, on the other side of the bay, near my house. His house is always crowded (our class is bursting at the seams) and he likes to lecture for three hours without giving us a break. However! I am determined to stay focused on this class, and put more effort into it than I did for Keats.

So far, my strategy has paid off. I paid attention through the whole class, and the background reading I did (a bunch of Pound bios, and the introduction to a book on him that I have) served me well. I emerged from the first lecture far more interested in reading Pound than I ever have been before.

To give a little history, I just don't like Pound's writing all that much. At least, what I've read of it hasn't thrilled me. But he's important because of his influence on so many important poets, including Eliot, one of my favorite writers. Pound discovered him, mentored him and basically rewrote The Wasteland for him. (I always resented Eliot for letting some guy revise his poetry for him. Pound or no Pound, I am against it on principle. Of course, in this case, it produced a great poem. So what do I know, right?)

Pound also discovered James Joyce. And influenced his own mentor, W.B. Yeats. And according to my Oxford book of something-or-other, Pound is the writer most often cited by poets as having influenced their poetics. He's an important guy, is what I'm getting at here.

Of course, I know all this, and I still have very little desire to read Pound. (Open the Cantos sometimes. Oh, go on. Open them up.) But I'm going to come out of this class with a well-informed opinion, for good or for ill. That's my entire goal, and I consider it a good one. I think it's going to be a good class, and I'm going to put a real effort into holding up my end of the bargain on that.

I do resent one thing, though. It took me all of last year to really understand how well connected and important my professor is. But he gave away his whole game to the new students today, when he told them all about a conversation he had about Pound with Robert Frost. Robert Frost!

I'm thinking, oh, sure. Break out the Robert Frost story. Spoon feed the new kids. Don't make them figure it out for themselves, like I did, back when I was their age...

So, I'm in this bizarre flux. I'm a student, but I'm getting a glimpse of what it's like being a teacher. And I switch back and forth, one to the other. It gives me such an odd perspective on everything.

In the meantime, I am so busy. I am staying on top of everything, but only just barely. I am making an effort not to let the journal itself fall by the wayside, but everything else (email, the poor neglected burb, CDs for the contest winners, the new escapades additions, etc.) will have to suffer the fallout. I'm sorry about that.

It will all be taken care of, once I have a chance to catch my breath. Wish me luck.

"There are many more ways in which I am a nerd, but if I tried to explain them all, we'd be here all night. Besides, if you've been reading me for any length of time at all, you already knew that."