january 12, 2001. Reading Stacy's weblog yesterday, I followed her link to an article that discusses Google searches as a way of investigating people. My curiosity piqued, I did a vanity search. Sure enough, every stupid thing I've ever done online can be traced through Google, including vampire poetry. I suggest you try it on yourself, if you haven't done it lately. Unlike human memory, which is fallible, the web remembers every idiotic thing you do. The horror. My first week of class is done, and I'm immensely grateful. I've never been so overwhelmed in my life: between group presentations, on-line discussions, school visits, video shoots, interdisciplinary centres, reading logs, case studies, field observations, personal observation papers & surprise seminars I don't know when I'll find the time to circulate blood. And there's probably a million other things I'm forgetting. Not to mention the 3 mandatory textbooks that cost me $250. I have one more class this semester than last, which is part of the problem. But I'm getting much the same reaction from the other ed. students and they have one less. It's something about this semester, I suppose: now that we've been out in the field, they're going to try to kill us with work. I can't figure out why. Some time this weekend I'm going to have to sit down with my binders and do a complete review of my convoluted class hand-outs, just to make sure that I haven't forgotten to add an assignment to my schedule. The very fact that such a thing is necessary makes me freak out - aren't these the very people who are supposed to teach me how to make assessment organic and transparent to my students? Sorry...I got swept away in the jargon there. Despite these various bitchings & moanings, my last class of the week was awesome. My professor of English methods is teaching the course, which concerns itself with literacy across the subject areas. Compared to the rest of the week, this class was an emotional holiday: I knew right away that I could not only trust her to give me work that I could handle, but that I could trust her to create a safe atmosphere in the class. I knew for sure that she'd never put me in a position where I felt stupid or resentful - and after 5 classes headed by unknown quantities, it was an incredible relief. I was also relieved that the Anti-Stephen was in the class, as I had gone the entire week without seeing him anywhere else. Until he & I & the Boy become friends (and if), I still need a class structure around me when we interact. It's just better for everyone that way. I did one fun Friday thing today: I went to the Imaginus poster sale in the afternoon and blew $30 on various things. Part of it was a desire to clothe my bare white walls; part of it was simply a desire to buy something pretty. I don't get that opportunity often on our budget. I bought: small prints of Waterhouse's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," (more teaching tools & a good thing to have up as decoration in a classroom anyway) Rosetti's "Sancta Lilias" (too pretty & cheap to pass up) and Giger's "Li" (I was feeling goth); normal sized prints of Chagall's "La Mariée" (I was compelled by the bride next to the goat playing viola) & Sean Connery as James Bond (it was in the $3 'take me home' pile, and I have fond memories of parties at the Alpha Sigma Sigma Frat Haus under the watchful eye of Saint Pete's copy). It made me quite happy. "La Mariée" comes from Art Modes, while "Sancta Lilias" comes from a very wonderful pre-raphaelite site. Something odd happened to me on the way into the bookstore: a complete stranger engaged me in conversation for a very long time about Toronto and education faculties, then scribbled down her number so we could get together. It was kind of awesome...the hesitation comes from not being used to such things. Is this what normal humans do? I'm so confused. In any case, she's a neat person, and I'm flattered by her attention. Those are very good reasons to get together, I think.