&#034Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.&#034 -Mark Twain

I&#039m going to teach!! I&#039m going to teach a college class! I&#039m going to teach an upper level French class at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College! This is so insanely exciting!! Last year when I was given the opportunity to teach University 101, I was pretty excited because that meant I got experience teaching a college class, but this… this is teaching a college French class, what I&#039ve been dying to do for a long time now!

This opportunity first came to my attention Monday while I was lying semi-comotose in bed when my ISU advisor called and left a message on the answering machine. I didn&#039t understand it at all at the time (having just woken up and getting immensely confused when she said, &#034This is Erin Doyle&#034 instead of &#034This is for Erin Doyle) but after Ian played it again, I got the drift that SMWC was looking for an adjunct who could teach an introductory French class for the semester. I wanted to call her back, but with the sore throat, the fact that I could barely sit up, and the fact that I still wasn&#039t sure what Erin Doyle I was, I decided it should wait. Tuesday came, and I wasn&#039t feeling a whole lot better, opting to lie in bed as much as possible. Checking my e-mail or talking to someone on the phone were not high priorities as I sipped NyQuil and watched movies. Wednesday, I went back to work at the tutoring center with the idea in mind that I would call Dr. Phillips (my advisor) while on campus, but between cataloguing Brad&#039s new books, catching up with him about his vacation, catching up with Macheak over lunch, and tutoring quite a number of students who needed help with papers, I didn&#039t get around to it. When I got home, I had a message from the dude in charge of possibly hiring me so I e-mailed him to tell him why I hadn&#039t been in contact earlier (sick, dude) but that I was very interested. His phone message had mentioned a class (French 211) which was unfortunately right before my German class, so in order to help him figure out which classes I could teach, I sent him my schedule. This morning I got an enthusiastic e-mail from him saying that based off my class schedule, I&#039d be perfect to teach French 371.

French 371. That means upper level!! Upper level!!! I figured I&#039d be teaching a class where vocabulary and grammar were all I&#039d have to think about, and since I&#039ve tutored so many 101 and 102 students, I banked on this being cake. Now, I&#039m not saying this is going to be hard or that I&#039m not going to be able to do this, but this does mean that I&#039ve got a hell of a lot of planning to do over the next week! Classes start at SMWC a day before ISU, and there are a lot of things I need to learn about SMWC like how to get there, the campus layout, their policies, how many students I&#039m going to have, if I need to buy a SMWC parking permit (just bought my very first ISU one today), what textbook we&#039ll be using, how and who I turn grades into… Yeah, lots of questions. I&#039ll be meeting with my contact dude next week, so hopefully I get a lot of answers to my bazillion questions. If not, well, I&#039m very gifted at flying by the seat of my pants. Currently, I&#039m so elated about getting a position as a French teacher, I&#039m just flying in general.

Once I get my résumé to SMWC and do some orientation, it&#039s grind-time for a syllabus and lesson plans. I&#039m planning on running to the parents&#039 house this weekend because after the retirement of my high school teacher and my college prof, they both gave me tons of their old texts and supplies which may come in handy for visual aids or hand-outs. The class is going to be taught in English, and the topic material is over the culture and civilization of France. That pretty much just means the history of France and its environs. Believe me, I&#039ve had nearly a dozen classes on those subjects, and I know enough off the top of my head to fill a book. The next step is syllabus-writing and lesson-plan-creating. I&#039m so excited!!

Posted: August 12, 2004 at ten after five in the evening.