Musings: On Poll Results and First Weeks of Teaching

So the poll results are in for August. Apparently nobody (but me) gives a rat's ass whether the Tigers win the World Series or whether Barry Sonnefield makes the right casting choice for Jack Gladney in White Noise or if Philip Roth gets his Nobel laureate due. But you do care about fixing that mess down in D.C. that's contributed to our world getting progressively more miserable since early in 2001. (Not to mention that some of you think I'm underpaid. I am. Criminally.)

Meanwhile, your old pal, The Whining Stranger, survived his first week of teaching without too many public speaking panic attacks or confrontations with water-balloon-toting or vodka-swilling hyenas. I was a bit put off by one student in one of my classes who confidently announced to me in his introduction that he doesn't like using intelligent words to discuss literature nor does he find much joy in sitting around talking about books. I told him I expect plenty of both, so hopefully there won't be too much trouble there. Otherwise, the student population in my classes seems eager so far, though my jokes are only earning resounding laughter about 62% of the time thus far. The generation gap is widening, I fear. I need to incorporate more physical comedy into my schtick. Nothing goes better with a good literary discussion than a well-timed pratfall.

And Mom called this morning to say that she scored free tickets to see Steely Dan and Michael McDonald. I'm happy for her. She was envious when she heard my glowing review back in July.