Well, that remains to be seen.

The question WHY is sometimes the most maddening one.

**
GSH 09. These students are very different from the ones last year. The ones last year were far more wide open. At least mine were . . . these are more studious, at least by all appearances. I'm enjoying the small class I have (8 students!), and surprisingly for me, we're not left with a ton of extra time at the end of a class as I had feared we would be.

**
Below, the answers I gave to this year's Faculty Survey:

If you could be an office supply product, which one would you be and why?
A fountain pen—a bit old-fashioned, and you gotta hold it just right to get it to work.

What is your favorite means of procrastination?
Read another book!

If you could do only one team-building exercise, which one would you do?
You know that one where we go out and get buffalo wings & beer? Yeah, that one.

What is your favorite practical joke?
There was the time we filled our friend’s Civic hatchback with dog kibble—all the way up to the windows. Of course, he then almost immediately wrecked it, so maybe that didn’t turn out too well. It wasn’t my idea anyway. [sorry, KW! I've always felt guilty about this one!]

Write your own epitaph (fewer than 10 words, please).
“The silence ripeness, and the ripeness all.”

argh--how glib, how flip, how brief and slightly cynical. Why is that my default mode, other than that I hate filling out forms?

**
My other summer school class: down to six students. We talked about Castiglione today (yeeehaw) and will tackle Cupid (FQ 3.11-12 & Astrophil & Stella) tomorrow. This stuff is so much fun to talk about. Consider the following passage from The Book of the Courtier:

considering, as we have oftentimes said, the soul is most inclined to the senses, and for all reason with discourse chooseth well, and knoweth that beauty not to spring of the body, and therefore setteth a bridle to the unhonest desires, yet to behold it always in that body doth oftentimes corrupt the right judgment. And where no other inconvenience ensueth upon it, one's absence from the wight beloved carrieth a great passion with it; because the influence of that beauty when it is present giveth a wondrous delight to the lover and, setting his heart on fire, quickeneth and melteth certain virtues in a trance and congealed in the soul, the which, nourished with the heat of love, flow about and go bubbling nigh the heart, and thrust out through the eyes those spirits which be most fine vapours made of the purest and clearest part of the blood, which receive the image of beauty and deck it with a thousand sundry furnitures. Whereupon the soul taketh a delight, and with a certain wonder is aghast, and yet enjoyeth she it, and, as it were, astonied together with the pleasure, feeleth the fear and reverence that men accustomably have toward holy matters, and thinketh herself to be in paradise.

Something tells me we don't customarily think so hard about love & beauty anymore. I especially love the part where the soul is filled with wonder, and "aghast" at what it perceives. Which just goes to show what I always tell my students:

It's not fun to be in love--it's a whole lot of suffering!

**
You want fun, go play a video game or read a book or ride a bike or something.

I jest, I jest.