Out of the goodness of my heart, I wound up covering for someone else's lecture today. It wasn't particularly hard to do, in theory; it's the same class I'm teaching, and we're in roughly the same places in the text. In practice, though...Just think of it: walking into a strange room full of strange, confused faces, where they have strange ways and strange customs all their own, like turning in homework on Mondays instead of (as prescribed by Scripture) Fridays, and not littering their lectures with bizarre al-Qaeda references...
Suppose, I said to them, you're walking down the street, and someone hands you a subspace out of the blue, and tells you that you'd better describe it in the simplest possible terms or al-Qaeda will fly a plane into your house...
I thought this would help to motivate bases for them. Everyone knows that bases help fight the grim spectre of global terror.
Actually, I use this same general hypothetical situation to motivate a lot of really abstract math problems to my students: solve this problem, or al-Qaeda will fly a plane into your house. I'll probably end up in Guantanamo Bay. (Not in the prison camp, but in the bay itself. Swimming with the octopi, as the saying goes.)
Oddly enough, I felt no fear. I introduced myself, found out where they were in the text, and managed to pick up there in a fairly coherent fashion...I even did the last part of the lecture noteless. And I didn't fuck up. I must've done fairly well, too...One student asked me after class if he could sit in on my regular lecture sometime. I guess I must be competent.
I have made mathematics both my bitch and a monkey, and now I can make it dance. Dance, mathematics! You're a monkey! Dance, monkey, dance!
(Note: all of us [me] here at HogBlog are firmly opposed to the bitchification of real monkeys, and we call on all people the world over: do not make monkeys your bitches. Not even the small ones.)
Some combination of graduate school and Seattle has made me a lot more confident over the last year. Soon I might be ready to rule the world.
Teaching is quite fun; it seems to energise me, when it goes well. I hope I get to do it again over the summer. David Bowie feels refreshed, uplifted, and invigorated by singing to an audience; I get my fix from giving math lectures. Perhaps David Bowie and I are soul-twins. That would be hot.
It's time to listen to the Talking Heads' 'Road to Nowhere'.
Posted by aloysius at April 30, 2004 07:03 PM | TrackBack |First off: I congratulate you on choosing to listen to Talking Heads' Road to Nowhere.
Secondly: I too have felt a significant increase in my confidence over the last year or so. I have gained responsibility, I have gained experience, I have gained a salary which technically doesn't qualify my for free government cheese. Today, I was responsible and helped take care of a situation at work that technically I could have stayed on the periphery of and silently declared it someone else's problem.
Also: Right now I am somewhat drunk. Whoorooroo!
Posted by: clake on April 30, 2004 08:08 PMYes! I declare this National Get Wasted to Celebrate your Newfound Responsibility and Capability to Deal with the Same Day! Let all humans the world over join with me, now, in getting wasted. Confidently. And responsibly. With octopi.
We buy our own cheese now.
Posted by: aloysius on April 30, 2004 08:19 PMI almost forgot...
The Internet is possibly the greatest invention ever, because, thanks to it, I can now watch Talking Heads music videos whenever I like.
Posted by: aloysius on April 30, 2004 08:23 PM