Fragments From Floyd

Taskus Interruptus

Yesterday--the first day as a reincarnated professor--went about like I had expected. The ratio of success to frustration was about one to one, with the failures having to do with not knowing where anything was, not knowing who to see for this or that little glitch, and the typical administrative omissions and computer screw-ups that keep one's access codes from working properly the first time around. Or the second.

Finally, the Moment of Reckoning had come and it was time for class. I stopped by the mailroom for the first time (after a couple of wrong turns and trying the wrong keys) to fetch my syllabus copies. Dang! As I was slipping them into my briefcase, I got a nasty paper cut and dripped blood all the way to the closest tissue paper. And it was in this condition, bird finger wrapped in a scarlet kleenex, that I arrived outside my future classroom, by a factor of three, the oldest of the silent figures waiting for the unknown to come.

This time, I was prepared: for the unfamiliarity; for the silence; for the isolation. Nobody knows anybody here. They don't talk to each other. They don't reply to me. They don't know when I'm joking or being sarcastic, not yet. And they don't know how a wrong answer or a "stupid" answer will be taken by me, by their alien peers. The first day of class is a lonely place. For everyone. But it will be less so on Day Two, tomorrow. We will build a relationship of sorts--not a symmetrical one, unfortunately, with seventy students. But none of us will ever have to do Day One again.

And what does the picture from our South Dakota trip have to do with any of this? Hey, for the next couple months, I make no guarantee that picture and text will agree, that stories will have endings, sentences will have periods or even verbs, or that I will even remember to post something once I've composed it. The weblog never had a more apt name: Fragments. We'll just enjoy the ride and ask your indulgence for the inevitable turbulence now and then.