consolations

[heresluck]

Thanks to all who offered sympathy about the job yesterday.

Better news today: a different job, which I mentioned a while back (in a locked post, because it involved news that was not mine to make public) came through today. Huge relief - it hasn't been at all clear that the funding would be available for the position, so while I knew that

Comments

[ex_greythist387]

Slightly belated congratulations, as well as condolences for the Gothic class. (Belated is what I get for doing weekly-ish flybys. Flybies? Bah.) Motivated students are a huge plus.

[heresluck]

Thanks -- for both the congratulations and the condolences. *g*

Motivated students are the best. I loved teaching in Women's Studies for exactly that reason; the students were self-selecting and engaged in a way that's just not true of most students in core-requirement English classes. Reluctant students can be a lot of fun too (I enjoy tricking them into liking things they thought would suck), but they're much more tiring on the whole.

[lalouve]

Well, when it comes to what one teaches I offer you the words engraved over my university's entrance: "Thinking freely is a great thing, but thinking rightly is a greater thing."
Quite apart from the absolutely appalling implications of this phrase, and the fact that it doesn't translate well, I think it applies to teaching. With a bit of tweaking: teaching what's right for you is a great thing, but teaching what you teach at the best of your ability is greater.
I think you would have done the gothic novel marvellously (heck, I wanted to attend it and I have my PhD already, not to mention live all the way across the world), but your determination to be a good teacher (which I very much admire) might be an even more important thing to pass on to your students than new knowledge about gothic texts. It's just a pity you didn't get a chance to do both.

[heresluck]

It's just a pity you didn't get a chance to do both.

Yeah, exactly. I don't want to have to give up either one.

[oracne]

Woo!

See you later this week, probably.

[heresluck]

I certainly hope so; how else am I to present you with pie?

[oracne]

Pie!

Mmmm. Pie.