Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007 - 8:45 a.m.

Well, they promised us snow, and by god, we have snow. When will we leave for our 8 hour trip to Memphis, you ask? Good question. After it stops snowing, I guess.

A dinner party with colleagues of J's last night. The woman of the pair is returning to school to teach ESL, which involves some linguistics classes. She reported having been stymied by her syntax class this semester. I felt smug about it. This is why I'm not a good person (well, one of the reasons)(I mean, I was stymied by syntax once too, after all-- and it's not like I ever got THAT good at it). Also had to make clear during my spiel about What I Am Doing These Days that it really wasn't the case that "things just got in the way" to prevent me from finishing. Maybe things get in the way for some folks, but for me...not the issue. Road so clear it may as well ahve been paved. Unless you count my basic personality as being a roadblock, which I guess you could. Anyway, I wonder if I will ever stop being defensive about this. Defensive, and yet I want people to know that change is always possible.

And of course, it was another case of it being people who basically don't know me who assumed the worst.

Well, anyhow. It was on top of my listening to a local public radio thing about how there are not enough math teachers in the state, and the commentators going on about how 'rewarding' teaching is. I kept thinking, no it isn't. Stop telling people that. I taught for several years, kept waiting for some reward apart from my generous grad student stipend. At best, a sense of relief that I didn't completely fuck something up that day.

Having someone lavish praise on objects I have made up out of nothing, now THAT's rewarding.

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