 22 Aug 2008 @ 05:21, by John Ashbaugh
Final exams week at the Ecole Technique.
These are the last two weeks of the summer quarter at school. The finals have to be given, so emotions are running high all over the school, as students are finalizing their knowledge into a coherent statement. I read composition essays. I read peoples’ stories. They talk about what they believe in, and what they think about what is right and what is wrong about a lot of things.
Some go out of their way to do everything they can to earn the highest grade they can possibly get. Then there’s the in-betweeners, who burn out or got other things going on or tell me they’re up against the writer’s block wall. Everybody’s priorities is what they are.
Then there’s always gotta be a couple or so even who are plenty smart enough to do very, very well, and who put this course on their back burner and try to get by with doing the bare minimum. These are the people who want to make it all up at the very last minute. Where are these people’s minds at? I can listen to their stories, but I can’t give ‘em credit for something that isn’t there. What can we do to make something up for what we were supposed to have done already? I can listen and try to understand and make allowances for honest effort, because some people can accomplish good things under circumstances that don’t follow the established pattern. I am the moderator, the dictator, and the decider, and they need to be showing product, interest, and effort. A multitalented crew is rowing this ship to nowhere as they look forward to their emerging careers. I’m teachin’ ‘em how to write better. Like I know something they maybe want to know for themselves, and all I’m trying to tell them to do is put their stories down on paper for somebody else to read.
I work because I pay rent because I don’t want to be living out on the street. I’m doing some good for somebodies who want to learn how to think better, and I’m supposed to be able to help them do that. Who knows who’s passing through all my classrooms and where they’re all going? Nice to make plans and think about tomorrow and how things can be if everything goes according to the plans. Never know, Right?
Reading:
The Big Sting Two
[link]
“The plan for an economic takedown, the results of rampant market speculations, insiders picking up assets for pennies on the dollar, the coming hyperinflation, the credit crunch, collapse of the dollar carry trade, suppression of metals prices, American meddling in Georgia . . .
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