teaching, speaking, connecting

Hoping you're feeling better Lynn Ruth. You do have to listen to your body, if only to give it the rest and care it deserves.

At UC Berkeley we have reached the end of the semester. In a sense this is a sad time because I have been with some of my students for what seems like a whole year (especially if they took two of my classes) and a lot was said in between grammar exercises and pronunciation drills. The college experience is not only about conveying knowledge, it is also about teaching life. At a factory like Berkeley, the latter often gets lost in classes that can exceed 100s of students. My classes are small on the other hand and that gives me the opportunity to really connect with my students and they're hungry for those connections. One of my students who had missed the evaluation forms for my class because she had been absent that day, called the departmental secretary and told her that I had "changed her life". I don't know what I have said or done exactly to trigger that comment but it makes teaching such a rewarding experience. I have had similar feedback before and I think it has to do with my willingness to inspire people to try and do big things. Lynn Ruth, I have always taught in places that don't pay, because even now as a lecturer, I get squat, and I think that if I get sick of Berkeley or if it gets sick of me, I want to hook up with you and maybe develop a forum for the two of us in which we address some of the issues we have addressed here and present those to an audience in some sort of motivational speaker format. This country has always embraced the evangelical (that's why Clinton and Bush were two-term presidents) and I believe there is a hardening and frenzy of our fast-paced lives going on that makes people crave something REAL, which they now fill with unsatisfactory and unreal placebos like church, shopping, the internet, the psychiatrist's couch. In fact, I have often thought that Americans pay big bucks for therapy because they're too frazzled to take the time, connect with friends and have the same conversations with their friends that they now pay a shrink $120/hr for. Lynn Ruth, you tell me, in your flu-induced hallucinogenic state, is there something here or is this just wind?!