Three down, six more to go

Of my classes, that is. Today's class, I thought, went well. We began discussing the required reading for general history, the book about diseases in human history. So I began the class with the dawn of humanity, some 4 million years ago. At a steady pace I advanced waaay up till the invention of agriculture and a bit further than that. So, having covered about 4 million years of pre-history and history in less than three hours, I'm content. Next challenge will be less in years but more in "stuff going on", as we proceed to the times AD.

I'm thinking some of the students may like me after all. :) No, not that I really were seriously afraid that they wouldn't, but at least two of them were brave enough to come and talk with me after class. One young man was interested in the Templars and Hospitallers and other pieces of history of the chivalric orders. I was so glad I could actually give him some solid answers. He had seen KoH, too, and we even talked about it for a while. A nice young fellow, I wish he is accepted in the Uni. The second student that stayed behind was a very active and nice young lady. Turns out she's just about as nuts about things medieval as I am. I hope she gets in, too. (Well, I hope all my 13 students get in, naturally!)

It was nice to talk to them without the "pressure" of the teacher's role. It's a bit different from how I can interact with students in highschool. For these two students I could be a fellow history buff after the class, not having to uphold the serious tone of teaching. For a highschool student I am, in all situations, a teacher. And that's fine, goes with the job description. But this was really nice. I'm happy that these two found me approachable enough to come and ask me questions about "extra-curricular" areas of history.

Well, tomorrow there's no class. But I have at least one set of lessons to plan and one batch of essays to grade. So enough of work for one day (and then some), for sure. And I seriously need to get to the gym, too.

The one word that describes my being now is hectic. So much going on. Unfortunately, it's going to get a lot slower in a month or so. I just found out that I'm most likely going to have to spend all of my summer without work (or, without any work that pays anything). It's actually both good and bad. I so need a break from everything and I so need time to work on my thesis. I'd like to see it almost finished when schools begin in the fall. Which would mean a lot of work during the summer. Without any income, which is very bad indeed... Yikes. I need to do some thinking about all of this, though. We'll see. I've got too much work now to worry about what happens in three weeks' time. :)

Now I'll go and watch Angel, he's on tv now and I've already missed half an episode. (I've seen it before, but so what. It's a good season of Angel, this last one.) Ta ta.