It's going on midnight at the end of a long day. Every Tuesday finds me working my day-job, then commuting over to the community college to teach a class to LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) students, away from home over 12 hours. Being only my second semester as a teacher, I'm still trying to find that correct balance between mind-numbing didactic lecture and somewhat-less-mind-numbing non-lecture activity. With reams of detailed information to cover, and a class of 25 tired adult students who also work and have personal lives and children to care for (several of my students work 11pm to 7pm after attending my 4pm to 10pm class!), I am hard pressed to keep it interesting and varied enough to hold their attention and make learning at least somewhat enjoyable, or at least not painful.
Tonight, I chose to spend 40 minutes reading aloud to the class from Sherwin Nuland's The Wisdom of the Body, the chosen chapter being a compelling story of a woman's brush with death from internal bleeding and a surgeon's heroic attempt to (successfully) save her life. The author writes so well--my students were on the edges of their collective seats and were the quietest and most attentive that they've ever been!
Overall, the class went well, and I end a long day in front of the fire with Mary and the dogs; Tina, the small grey canine snores at my feet, as she so often does. As the fire in the woodstove burns itself out, I prepare to retire to the warm bed and bid another day well-lived.
No regrets today. My work is done, it was done well, and I can sleep a tired but satisfied slumber. It's cold, the day was long, my brain is fried, but this is the current path of choice, and I embrace it today in its entirety. Life is for living, after all.
1 comment:
"...and this is your brain on..." Maggie Thatcher said her most fulfilling days were those filled with tasks well done, not spent lounging around. Ben Franklin suggests a life filled with deeds worth the writing, that would make interesting reading....I like what the prophet/mutant Kuato told Quaid in Total Recall..."You ARE what you do...."
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