Ick. I'm hoping things will pick up, and it'll be a worthwhile class.

Sadly, one of the things I'm already looking forward to most in this class is the before-class time. Kelly Foxworthy, one of the editors of the Seeds of Change magazine that I put an article in this past spring, is in the class. She's an entertaining person to talk to, and I'm enjoying her company. I have to do something at work since Mary's back in Pennsylvania for the summer.

I also taught my first session of my Intro class today. Two and a half hours of class is a lot of lecturing. It was rough on my voice and it was rough on my feet. I know, I'm lame. I've got about 12 kids, and already two of them look like handfuls. One's a non-traditional know-it-all, the other's a nerdy psuedo-punk know-it-all. They both sit in the front row and they're already kind of annoying me. Then again, after not teaching for a month (and having little time to prep) I admittedly stumbled over myself a little. I'll track how this progresses, but it may come to verbal smackdowns if they don't just shut the fuck up.

Notice that this entry is "preferred list." I have to do something to protect my thoughts from the chance that a student (or someone else) may stumble upon this blog.

Oh, and I got a text today for the U.S. and Canada class I'm teaching in the fall. Blech. It's awful. Unfortunately, it's the one that the faculty person overseeing that particular course has chosen. Really, it's an awful textbook. Over the next few days, I'm going to attempt to gather the cajones to tell her that this book is terrible (in nicer terms) and request using something (anything) else. It's really that bad. This book was written in 1989 originally. I received the 2004 edition. All of the pictures are in black and white, and the maps are still using mid-1990s data. The book divides the continent up into regions instead of covering the topical geography of the continent. It's terrible.

I'm actually starting to think of getting a haircut. I want to wait until fall and use it as some sort of a fundraiser. Either I'll use it to raise money for Pet Guards or I'll use it to raise money for breast cancer research. Two charities that need money, and two charities that I actually give a shit about. Okay, that sounded bad... they're on the top of my list right now. Get $1,000 of donations, and away the hair goes. Or $2,000. Whatever.

I think I'll go completely bare if I'm going to raise money. Head and face. I haven't completely shaved my beard since April of 2001. But that's to be determined... and it's the only reason good enough I can think of to warrant cutting all of this hard work away. And maybe I'll actually sell my hair (and a video of the de-hairing, certificate of authenticity, etc.) on eBay, with the proceeds going to whichever other charity I don't give the original donations to.

We'll see.

And in sports, U.S.A. Soccer is terrible (who knew?) and the Reds killed their eight-game win streak with a four game losing streak. Well, when your pitching is that bad...

Jeff told me today at work that Univision is showing the World Cup. Definitely going to try to catch some of that tomorrow before I go to work. We GET that channel, and it has some commonalities to hockey.