Sunday, February 3, 2008

Off the high board again...

Tomorrow marks my return to the front of a college classroom (two, actually) after an 18-month absence. A former professor/colleague retired early after fall semester, so I was "called up." Such is the life of an adjunct.

I've been scrambling to get ready, a process complicated by the death of my father-in-law following an intense two-week illness. So I'm going to leave you with a quote from the front of one of my syllabi. It's about writing, but as I was biting my nails tonight I realized it applies to teaching as well:

It is because writing is inaugural that it is dangerous and anguishing.
It does not know where it is going, no knowledge can keep it from the
essential precipitation toward the meaning that it constitutes and that
is, primarily, its future. There is thus no insurance against the risk of
writing. (Jacques Derrida)

Hmmmmm....sounds like love, too.

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