SUNDAY: Running back from the Baptist Academy this morning, many cars passed me on the long, hilly, winding road, on their way to the Sunday service. Finally having been conditioned by my rural neighbors, after many years of living in the city, I raised my hand at each oncoming car and made a friendly wave at the driver. Now, where I used to be the one taken by surprise by such gestures, often ignoring them or making some awkward, stammering reply at the last moment, I became strangely invested in whether the drivers returned my wave. Most did, but only in that baffled manner that suggested they never would have acknowledged me with a glance, let alone waved in return, if they had not been prompted by me. Others ignored me or, worse, looked but refused to wave, which struck me as an obscure affront, as if to say "Why are you out here, running, when I'm on my way to church?"

But then there were those who waved with an easy flip of the wrist, affirming somehow as a handshake, or a slap on the back.

* * *

Dinner at Manuel's: A blue t-shirt:
"b -wling
--cks"

-- a black shoulderstrap crinkling the front so you couldn't read whether it says "sucks" or "rocks." The guy wearing it's skinny, somewhat nerdy; hard to tell what his opinion would be, or whether it's supposed to be ironic, or what.

Oh my God...

I've been waiting for this date forever. She gets into the car. My right arm is strapped tightly to my side. She notices this, but doesn't say anything. I start the car and drive. We pull away from the curb and out into traffic. Oh, no. It's starting again. It's very difficult to make a left turn. I have to yank the wheel in 10-degree increments. She asks if she can help me. I smile and mutter under my breath: "No, that's all right, really..."

Tell me why I don't like Mondays

Actually it wasn't so bad. Woke up from a weird dream where I was moving back to or from San Francisco, somehow managed to be cheerful (as I made coffee, let the dog out, took out the cats' food), and was annoying/amusing Tina by singing the NPR music and imitating the announcers. "This is Corey Flintoff..."

Drove to school and parked, took my 8am class down to the Writing Center for a tour that was a little bit quicker than I had thought it would be, and then brought my class back and went through a list of approximately 50 statements. They were to raise their hands if the statement applied to them. This was an idea that Abby had, then Tina did it, and we came up with our own questions (which I modified further when I did it). Here were some of the highlights:

3. I have a younger and/or older sibling. (I mention this one because one student did not raise her hand, and when I said "Oh, you're an only child," she said that actually she had a twin brother.)

4. I have a family member currently serving in the military. (Strangely, the early class had many more of these than the later one. These included several stationed in Iraq.)

6. I love chocolate. (One student said she was allergic and breaks out in hives if she eats this. Which is really too bad.)

14. I watched the World Cup this summer. (Some students had absolutely no interest in this -- one called soccer "boring" -- but the ones who did, like me, were pretty rabid about it.)

17. I have a great roommate. (A lot of students reported being really happy with their roommates. Just wait till the first major stress test -- like midterms, folks' visit, or somebody dating a total loser.)

20. I know how to drive a standard. (Pretty basic, but led to a discussion of the VW van in Little Miss Sunshine, a great movie that we saw over the weekend.)

22. I am a vegetarian. (One student in the early class raised her hand, but said she eats chicken; one in the later class said she'd been a vegetarian for two months.)

30. I watch one of the following shows: Bridezilla, Project Runway, and Flavor of Love. (Should I be happy or alarmed that fresh-persons are amused by the same things I am?)

41. I think Tom Cruise is a weirdo. (I don't think most of them have lived in a world where he wasn't considered a little odd -- obviously he's gone off the deep end now.)

Blogging is Beautiful

So it's Sunday afternoon and I just took my dog down to the river for a bath and a little ball-chase. A bit shell-shocked and worn out from grading 40 or so Freshman comp papers (that's right, kids). Still more work to do before (and after) dinner. But I just came across this story on Yahoo.com about how folks are making lots of money from their blogs. Check it out. This is to show you that blogging is not just for crackpots and computer nerds. Some of these people are making serious coin.

Meanwhile, here's a site to help you with common errors in English. It's pretty comprehensive, and probably more than most people need to look at. But there are links to just about every problem that I marked in student papers from the 1st class essay.