I start teaching at a university, today

Some things i keep reminding myself:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

And:

Don't misjudge your audience. If the room is dead, then it's either your material or your delivery. Breathe, Relax, and change up your style a little.

If that doesn't work, take a hard swerve toward new material.

Finally, and most importantly, I have a brand new blue pinstripe suit, and I know how to talk to people.

All will be well.

Time for a shower, and so forth.

Kennesaw First Day 1.10.12

Kennesaw First Day 1.10.12, originally uploaded by fenryswlf.

Today's my first day teaching at Kennesaw State University. To commemorate it, I had unknownbinaries take a picture of me.

Might do another, when I get home.

First Day of Class

So, sometime in the past two weeks, I went from having 19 students in my Tuesday/Thursday class to having 35. That is to say, my class is completely full.

It was a short day, today. We went over the syllabus, introduced ourselves, and I talked to them about what I was hoping to impart to them through the class: A sense of what philosophy can do, good and bad, and a sense for the kinds of questions philosophy can help us ask, and what the world looks like, when we answer those questions, through those lenses.

They mostly seemed receptive, and I let them go at around 7.10pm. Short first day.Thing is, I had one student stay after to ask me about something he'd read in the text (already), something about Plato and Ethics, which got into a discussion about deontology and consequentialism. Then he asked me why I'd said that Zen Buddhism was going to be the hardest thing they studied, and I did my best to tell him about paradox, contradiction, no-mind, pure consciousness, and the difference between Mahayana and Zen. In about 20 minutes.

The amount of time I talked to him, there, was about equal to the scheduled class time. Then he asked me if I minded if he read ahead in the book. HAH!

So i know at least one student is interested in what we're doing.

Before all this, I sat in the Part-Time Instructors' Office, figuring out the ins and outs of the network and the printer.

Today? It was a pretty great day.