With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
2002-10-16 - 3:20 p.m.
That’s better. Someone else who uses this computer has weird taste in the way he or she makes Word look. I’m so territorial about this computer. I have no right to be of course.
I asked Anna if there was a school rule against killing students. She said there was. It really isn’t fair. I think if I beheaded a few of them the rest of the class would sit up and take notice.
I gave back the test today. When I got to class less than half the class was there. Some came in late and some didn’t show up at all. That’s a great way of improving your grade, don’t show up for class. Four students who missed the test wanted to take a makeup. I told them repeatedly that if they are going to miss a test they have to let me know that day. None of them did of course. One of them had a good excuse, her cousin committed suicide and she flew back to California for the funeral. The rest didn’t. One girl who came very late told me after class that she had to go to the registrar. What a lame excuse. She could have gone after class. If they were going to make her miss a test she could have come to the class to tell me. She didn’t of course. She said that I should have given out my email. I did of course. The first two classes I gave it. I can’t help it if she didn’t write it down. She was claiming I didn’t give it. She said she asked other people and they didn’t have it either. Of course the rest of the class did. I don’t know how she explained that.
After I finished the lecture on how they have to work harder and pay more attention I started teaching. One student kept looking at his test instead of paying attention. I told him to put the test away. He closed the book but left it on his desk. I told him to put it away. He just sat there and gave me a blank stare. I told him that he had two choices, to put the test away or to leave the room. He left the room. How stubborn can you get? What could he be thinking? “I did poorly on the test so I’m going to not pay attention and piss the teacher off.” He sure showed me.
I hate getting tough with my classes. I want to be the nice teacher. I’m much happier joking, telling stories, and dancing around when I teach. Unfortunately some students take that as a license to goof off. After the student left everyone paid rapt attention to everything I said. They asked good questions. If I could only get them to do that and smile at the same time. I did break the gloom a few times. I have to keep my faith that if I love the material and enjoy myself that my enthusiasm will be contagious.
After class one girl came up to me. She was really late because they closed the subways in Queens because of a bank robbery. I suspect that was why some of the other students were missing too. She looked so sad when I gave her her test back. I gave her my encouraging speech. I told her that she could still get an A in the class. I told her to remind me to give the rest of my class the nice speech next class. I don’t want them to think of me as the mean teacher. In the end though I rather they failed the course and thought of me as mean but learned to take responsibility then have them love me and never learn how to learn without the teacher holding their hands and looking over their shoulders the whole time.
I didn’t see the The Kennedys last night because I had to prepare a test for my class tonight. I need a Kennedys fix, I’ll have to see them Friday night.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile 2002-10-16
