Camp Rehab

>Editor's note: I wrote this back in July but never posted it. Please, enjoy the rant!

I went to New York. I moved to a new house. My son has developed all kinds of neuroses (?) neurosises(?) neurosi (?) crazy new personality ticks due to the move. I went to the beach. I am supposed to be searching for grants for Pillow Academy. I have slacked off in every aspect of my life. I never forgot about you!

My friend, Paige, wants me to chime in on the trendy super hot spot of the moment - rehab. I should title this entry: Rehab and the idiots who go there for publicity and not to get the real help that is offered. Prison is a close second on the celebrity top 5 summer respites.

What is there to say about Lindsay, Britney, Paris, Mel Gibson, Nicole and her alleged fetus that hasn't already been satirized and made fun of by absolutely everybody. Apprarently, you're nobody until somebody plans an intervention for you.

Did you see Alec's brother, Daniel Baldwin, on that ABC special report? His rehab place looked like a spa. I could use a rest and I'd like to go where the action is hot, the therapy is cool and the sincerity is lukewarm. Sounds kind of like camp. How's the food? Could I get a tan there? Can I study Kabbalah? Make a lanyard?

I'm so there!

Those Who Can't Do - Teach at Community College

I go back for round two of college for the feeble minded. I am the epitome of a college intructor gone wild in my utter lack of knowlege and ill-preparedness. I am so tired with worry at having to teach four classes full of young adults who don't know how to string a proper sentence together or spell but who are excited that they are in college. I don't quite know how to help them and it makes me sad, as well as, mad that I don't have enough information about the courses I'm teaching to fill an hour's worth of time.

On a lighter note.... How about that Brittney? Think she'll lose her children? Did you see the picture of her without her wig?

Those who can't do

Do you remember the movie, Coal Miner's Daughter? Do you remember the scene where Loretta Lynn is about to have a nervous breakdown on stage? Just before she collapses, she gives a little speech about how her life has always moved too fast. She tells her fans that her daddy told her that she had to run her own life and if she didn't, her life would run her. She tells everybody that one day she was just a little girl in the holler then she was married at 13 and then she started having babies and now she's up on a stage talking to her audience. That's just like my life except for growing up in the Kentucky Hollers, being married at 13, having four babies by the time I was 20 and oh yeah, I don't sing.

But I fear my life is running me right now.

All I know is that I was driving home from the beach last Sunday when I got a frantic call from a teacher at our local community college saying they were desperate for a remedial English comp teacher. She asked if I would like to jump in and start teaching the following week!!!

I have never wanted to teach. Never. Ever. Never!!!! I think teaching is a noble, high minded profession. It's just not anything I ever felt compelled to do. And now Mississippi Delta Community College is enlisting me to teach college students the basics of English Composition and by the way, could I do another class? It's reading. Reading - for college students!!!! What the hell?

After much soul searching and screaming to Super Steve that I can't do it. I relented and said I would because (a) it's only two half days a week in Greenwood;(b)it's more than double the meager money I made at the book store for 4 half days a week and (c)it's a challenge and I'm a sucker for ways to make myself crazier than I already am.

I don't know the first thing about teaching and I certainly don't know the first thing about teaching college students who didn't get the basics of English in the first place. I want them to love the power and beauty of a well written sentence and I want them to understand noun / verb agreements and what a preposition is and that it can't end a sentence. I want them to want to read for pleasure. I know that won't be the case. Even I never wanted to read required reading books. There was just something in me that rebelled about being told I had to do something.

Wish me luck. I hope I can find a way to make the classes palatable and interesting. I hope they don't eat me alive and call me a fraud. I start tomorrow.

Next entry: I will discuss why I went to NYC. Bring your notebooks because there may be a quiz.