to my text did you feel super NUTS teaching for the first time?, J called from Portland and talked to me for a long time about how to think when I look over the room the first week, and how to settle in and learn how to love what I teach while I learn what I’m teaching. Have I mentioned I have never actually taken this class before? I tested out of it and right into 400-level lit classes. We talked for a long time while I drank a cup of peach detox tea; he talked about their new life in Portland and about the coming football season; I told him about our trivia team going to the finals and about how much I missed playing dominoes with them. He promised to call on Wednesday to cheerlead me into my first class and advised I did not go get obliteratedly drunk to vent some of the anxiety/relief directly after, as he’d done.
I feel better now. I will continue to obsess and perfect and line up all my little ducks before the semester starts, and I will do fine.
