Life Around Shepherdstown

Here I am, Saturday night, end of week 1. It has been a trying week. We have had the normal setbacks, such as being locked out of rooms and/or buildings, miscommunications while learning the ropes, and so on. There have been other setbacks (or displacements or insert your own euphemism here). I've had interesting teaching experiences to say the least, but it looks like we're revamping some "educational prerogatives" and hopefully next week will recapture the students.

Speaking of students - they are incredible. It is scary how eager they are to engage in intellectual discourse. I love teaching PopEd and popular culture. It is also great to watch the students as they realize that everything before this very moment is history, which means that yes, we can study Queen Latifah as a historical figure and discuss the semiotics of Verizon Wireless ads.

My telephone doesn't work inside any of the buildings here and my dorm phone has some issue where it doesn't ring. Feel free to text or leave messages - I get them at some point when I go outside into a green space.

We've been blessed with AMAZING weather and a FLAT campus. The theaters here are really fantastic spaces and the classrooms are...well, some of them are great and some of them are in need of a renovation.

I'm readjusting to the concept of having a roommate and what it is like to never truly be private. It hard to think that I did this for two years in college, but it has given me a lot to think about concerning cultures of the world where multiple generations of multiple families occupy the same living space and sometimes the same room.

So far this week we've been treated to a reading of the play "Love Letters," an artists' panel, and a Bollywood film festival. The faculty had a rehearsal today for the Variety Show to be held on Monday (notice I didn't say "Talent Show" - that moniker is long gone). I managed to get out of bed to do my tech, which lasted for about three minutes and consisted of me choosing a stool and lighting. Which leads me to mention that I have been sick - lucky me! But I slept a lot of it off today and now I'm on the upswing.

So far I've only had one student injury, which was a fractured elbow, and the monkey-bite count is still at zero (hoping to not surpass last year).

And now I'm off to supervise a few minutes of tonight's Around the World dance. I'll update as the time comes.