Misc.

• Digging through a file drawer today as I tried desperately to locate the masters for the excerpt from Walden that I teach from, I stumbled across an entire notebook of student samples from old projects.  Many of them were from students I haven't seen in years. I sat down at the table in the back of my classroom and flipped through them.  It made me smile, but it also made me a little sad, too.  Bittersweet is a word that so often applies to my job.  There is so much beauty in it, so much luckiness in having been any part of those wonderful lives, and also always the necessary proud sadness when all the little birds are gone.
• It's amazing how happy a length of fabric can make a person.  I put on a new scarf I bought the other day, and it was like magic.  Maybe it was because it was bright orange.  I don't know.  It was a good thing. 
• Emerson today, and the start of a two-day mad dash through Transcendentalism.  I saved Self-Reliance for Friday the 13th, a secret treat for myself.  I don't know if any of this year's students will engage with the piece, but I hope so.  They only have a small excerpt from it, but as I was preparing it for discussion tomorrow, the mighty words rang in my mind once again like church bells sounding in bright clear morning air.  God, I love that essay.  What would it have been like to have known Emerson personally?  How wonderful even to contemplate.
• Hard to believe the 100th anniversary of Titanic is coming up.  Right now, 100 years ago, those people were on board blithely going about their lives, not knowing they were about to become welded to history in an inseparable manner.  Which brings me to....
• North Korea shot a missile today.  It broke up, but what fresh hell is this the beginning of?  I worry about my friends in Japan, my friend in Seoul, my guys in the military.  I wish we could all just have a little less crazy in the world for awhile.
• I found out that two other people I know had gone through the same thing I went through recently that distressed me so much.  If only I had told someone.  One of them was going through it at the same time as me.  One of them had been through it before.  We could have commiserated, mitigated, brought some peace to each other, but we have all gotten to the place where we just don't talk.  I have to do better.  I have to find a way to crawl out of my hole, put down the red pen, and do better. There is life outside the classroom door....
• My head is starting to kick, and I'm tired.  I have a test to finish up, but I think I'm crawling toward the bed.  I'm Scarlett O'Hara-ing this day.  Maybe tomorrow will bring me something bright, shiny, and beyond all hoping good.