(no subject)

Today I teach the second part of "Writing Using the Five Sense" for Edit Zone (http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/editzone/index.html ). Next week and the week after is the editing section, so Davina and I will swap hats (me as student - dangerous for Davina!). I thought it was going to be hard to teach using a chatroom, since for information-based subjects it gets almost impossible, but chatrooms are perfect for teaching writing skills. Each student keys their short exercise in when they are ready then I talk to them directly. It becomes a mixture of private tuition and group discussion. The main trick as a teacher is being able to follow about six strands of thought at once. For anyone who has been in a long conversation with me, my ideas minuet so it is lazy-thinking: I don't have to spend so much energy disciplining my thoughts.

After that I get to write 1000 words of novel and then watch Eurovision. I am not allowed to watch Eurovision until I have meddled evilly in my characters' lives to the tune of 1000 words.

This means I get to prepare a class on Richard I tomorrow, since today looks pretty full. It is surprisingly fun to teach a course on someone you basically don't like. I get to make all sorts of rude comments about him. I respect other peoples' need to hero-worship (well, sort of) by putting some of my mean thoughts as questions. ("Richard was a middle child; John was the baby of the family - how do *you* think they interacted?") I have permission to use The Draft Board game in class, which will save two lessons on lives of individuals and be a lot of fun to boot.

Can you tell that after the studentless summer I am totally enjoying teaching?

(no subject)

I am teaching but had to take this detour. I am haunted by a silly thought and if I don't get it out of my system, my poor class will have to suffer it and it would not be fair on them to suffer doubly.

My thought is that if Terry Pratchett wrote a novel about the eastern Cousins of his Nac mac Feegles the book might have to be called "We Wee Free Men from Orient Are." And I keep wondering if they would smoke rubber cigars.

There, it is done. My students are safe.

(no subject)

I am not sure about the sanity of the universe.

My silly article (http://www.triviumpublishing.com/articles/fightingwords.html ) on insulting people in Old French has over 10,000 hits. What is really daft is we put it up in temporary form - warts and all- and have never quite got round to a revision.

The list emerged from my doctorate of all things, too. Just goes to show that bits of doctoral research can interest a surprising number of people...