And some Mondays the ideas come slower.
My Monday? I spent the entire day on class prep. How does one spend two hours on grammar and keep students interested?
I think I’ll have about 75 minutes, actually. And then I’ll do a case study.
I liked case studies. That was my favorite class exercise, talking about a story or circumstance and weighing the pros and cons, taking the other position just for fun. It was a bit Socratic. A friend of mine tells me I’d like law school for this same reason. For once I’ll just believe him and not find out for myself.
The thing I really missed, after graduating and finding myself in a newsroom, were those conversations. We just never had time. Too many deadlines. And, in some later newsrooms, there weren’t that many people. At al.com we had these discussions, but it was about a lot of 2.0 and 3.0 topics.
Do students still enjoy case studies? I bring up one or two in the Crimson newsroom when I can. Tomorrow I’ll add one to my classroom goody bag.
So, yes. this took a great deal of the day. But the slide show, for the grammar, should be thorough.
We grilled steaks tonight. Had dinner over the Boise State-Virginia Tech game. Very fun to watch. They both look fast, if only Virginia Tech played with more certainty early. Since it was a back and forth game, though, and since Boise is from, well, Boise, I’m sure people will argue they haven’t proven themselves. They get a sponge cake of scheduling every year, but they beat everyone they play, even in the marquee, game of the week settings halfway across the country. Boise State belongs.
Those uniforms do not. Just dreadful stuff. The game looked like Tecmo Bowl, 8-bit graphics and a flea flicker to start the action followed by calls with little internal logic. Not that anyone noticed, every fanbase was too busy silently thanking the merchandising gods that their school wasn’t in a Nike deal. And the Nike fans were just dreading the next big “experiment.”
When I was in undergrad — two memories in one post! — someone had the nice idea to add an orange shadowbox under the jersey numbers. You would have thought they were tearing down beloved campus buildings based on the response. It is hard to imagine what would happen if Nike had the Auburn unis with which to tinker.
Not much else here for now. No history lessons today. The day just got away from me. Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.
Anyway, enjoy your four day office jaunt. And while you’re already mentally coasting into Wednesday, you can join me in wondering why someone didn’t advocate for Labor Week.
Just something to think about.
