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Dear Blog,

I have a student who has taken a vow of silence. Surprisingly, it has changed class very little. The vow will be up on Wednesday, which is convenient since he is scheduled to present a chapter from our textbook. Last night I was up late grading. I was so tired today in class that I nearly fell asleep. Twice I felt my head jerk up after drifting off. That's bad when you're the teacher. I'm either sick, have allergies, or have got the black lung. Regardless, one of the least sound pedagogical tools I can think of is coughing on the students. In my ESL class tonight, I was hacking before class, had no problems for the entirety of the two hour lesson, then started hacking again when students were asking me questions afterwards. The worst part is that when I start coughing, I also tear up. On the bright side, I might be mistaken for someone who cares. Love, Scott

Posted by Scott on 03 April 2006 at 4/03/2006 09:57:00 PM |

i skipped work today because i had a case of the black lung. actually i just woke up at eleven and thought it was too late to go into work, regardless of if i cared about work or not.

Posted by Blogger Ellen | 4/04/2006 09:38:00 PM  

Well, I'm still feeling pretty good so it is possible that I have the immune system. But, please, let me hang on to it for the next three weeks...

Posted by Blogger Melinda | 4/06/2006 07:46:00 PM  

Where I live, in the Appalachians, lots of people have Black Lung. Perhaps because of the intense coal mining going around. Actually, most probably because of it.

Posted by Blogger Scattering | 4/07/2006 07:13:00 AM  

Staying up late grading always felt like black lung to me--certainly worse than allergies. Maybe that was my ADD talking though; it seems as a hallmark of ADD is that the strickened can focus on objects of interest very intensely, and the rest not so much. Grading was the not so much. Hope classes are going well despite the black lung. Cheerio, Seth

Oh, and the word verification on this message is yswkl. Dosn't that stand for "why so kool?" Anyhow, I always have this niggle of panic for a brief second before verifying. Years of misspelling insecurities set up like domino rally and only needing a nudge to tumble. Or it may be that I have some repulsion to the message, "We're sorry, your too young or too stupid to post on this blog."

Posted by Blogger Seth Ellis | 4/09/2006 11:42:00 PM  

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