I didn�t get much sleep last night, so as it turned out, it was no problem getting up at 5 to get ready for my morning commute to my seminar. �People do this every day,� I had to keep reminding myself. Imight be doing this every day. For possibly the first time ever, I had to wake up AJ to tell him goodbye before I left. I was agonizing over whether I should let him sleep and risk a panic when he woke to find me gone or to risk a freak out because I was leaving. In fact, neither occurred and my concerns were far more grounded in my own ambiguity about the whole venture.

When I walked into AJ�s room, he immediately said, a curt, �Yeah,� as if he were picking up a phone call in the middle of a very important business meeting. I told him I was going and kissed him goodbye. He put his arms around my neck to give me a hug before asking my assistance at carrying his three favorite objects downstairs: blankie, caterpillar (whose full name is Very Hungry Caterpillar, but we can never seem to get that all in), and Rubatubby the fish downstairs to the kitchen. After ascertaining that I would, indeed, be home to say goodnight, he was satisfied with my imminent departure. �Bye, Mommy. Have a good train ride.�

It bothers me that I missed his whole day. Usually when I head into the city for work I am home for breakfast and dinner. I missed both today. As stir-crazy as I�ve been going as a stay-at-home mom, this really doesn�t make much sense. Hopefully, though, I�ll be able to find a situation that will not require such a hideous commute.

Today�s portion of the teaching workshop was of mixed quality. The sessions were run by a mix of professors and advanced graduate students with some teaching under their belts. Virtually without exception, the graduate students were smart, funny, engaging and helpful while the professors wee tedious, repetitive, and very frequently exhibiting the exact behaviors they were warning us against. For example, a female English professor lcctured us on the importance of de-eroticizing the classroom (oh, how I wish I were kidding), while breathing heavily into the microphone and running her fingers through her hair. She then went on to talk about how the most important part of being a good teacher is being a good listener and then called on someone from the audience. While the audience member was asking her question, the professor began staring at her watch. Or, rather, I should say watches. For some inexplicable reason, she had two watches, one bright pink, the other bright orange, encircling her right wrist. Her co-panelist was much more palatable, but kept twisting his mustache in such an alarming way, that I could scarcely concentrate on what he was saying. The eccentricities were, indeed, on full display. Being away from campus, I forget how important it is for many academics to strike a pose.

But back to the eroticization of the classroom. First, you must know that at my university all things theoretical trump all things practical in any arena. So it should not have surprised me that what started as a 90-minute session that seemed to have been for the sole purpose of telling us not to date our students (the wisdom of which escapes me, for if anyone in the room did not know that, they had no business being there in the first place) turned into a Foucaultian discussion of the power inequity of the student-teacher relationship and how (and I quote) �the classroom is always already eroticized.� That was about when I was really wishing I had someone to pass notes to.

The sessions began at 8:30 and were to run to 4:30 without so much as a lunch break. Actually, the lunch meeting was the best one of the day. It was run by three graduate students and began as a discussion of how to prepare for and get through your first week in the classroom, but ended up as a group discussion of how to start and keep discussions going in the classroom, deal with difficult students, etc. But I am spent and not particularly excited about a return trip tomorrow.

Despite my criticisms, it was, overall, a useful day, although possibly not for the intended reasons. As someone who has taught a number of times before, I felt I was being quoted a lot of stuff that seems totally obvious. But it was nice to be reminded of the difficult areas and it was nice to feel that I do intuit the right choices. It was also very helpful to be reminded of the nature of the institutional culture to which I am returning and to meet the other grad student teachers from my department. Although I was rather alarmed by how many times I heard, �Oh, I�ve heard of you. It�s nice to finally meet you.� Apparently I am a legend. I don�t think I want to know why.

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