Close-up.

About two-thirds of the way through last semester, with great gnashing of teeth and rending of garments I declared that I was going to do everything differently this semester, absolutely EVERYTHING, I was going to bin every single thing I was currently doing and every premise on which I based the things I was currently doing. It was all crap and my teaching was in bad faith. Terrible.

A couple of weeks later, I realized that I always feel this same way at the two-thirds point of each and every semester. So I decided to settle right down. In this more mellow mood, I took many, many notes on several tiny pieces of paper, some of which I still have, with the ideas I had for improving the stuff I was currently doing. Like: find a few new readings; give more detailed instructions about this and that; have two consultations in the semester instead of one; set standards and enforce them, do not yield! etcetera.

Then I turned in my grades and life turned blissful. It has been thus for a couple of weeks. I explicitly told myself that I would not think about school until the new year.

Today, the people, is that new year.

Suddenly, as I look more closely at how much I need to do to be ready, my notes seem rather inadequate to the task. Alas.

However I DO have some resolutions for the new year. That is, I have resolved to

• attend one literary reading per month,
• plan writing time each week,
• take a longer walk several times each week,
• plan a family dinner once a month,
• make more music,
• always be reading,

and I am also going to try to take the longer view when I feel like I'm the worst teacher in the world, or the lamest writer, or whatever. The long view, the people. 2012 is all about the long view.