November 26, 2013

Schubert.

Things fell apart for my playwriting students. We couldn’t find a venue for our annual public presentation, so we didn’t have one, but instead met among ourselves in the Humanities Lecture Hall to act our ten minute plays to one another. That being said, the afternoon was lively and the plays hit the highest corporate level ever, one of them being presentable to the public under full sail. In the end, one’s success as a teacher lies wholly in one’s effect on the students, and that is the hardest thing to judge. I’ve never gotten one of those university teaching awards (this continues to baffle me, especially considering who has) so I rely on the anecdotal. I want to say that the evidence of anecdote is good, but what if only the people who like one mention their experience? One does one’s best. One bends a little to the wind of criticism. One holds firm when that is a false wind. One gropes forward, as in all things. Me, I’d like to do a little less groping and a little more knowing for sure.

Black rain on the windows. It is too early for the news– the radio plays those in-depth programs about obscure matters from the BBC that I remember disturbingly from nights of sickness. I wait to hear how the day goes, whether the weather is a disaster or things might go as planned, the last day for this objectively quite short (subjectively quite long) semester.