Second day of classes

T

hree classes today. Yeah, they basically treat us like pack mules or something. I teach four classes, and the load is pretty heavy. And three classes on Thursday is a burden, but its okay. I know most of the students and, like I say, I love to teach., I just might love myself to death... wait, that didn't sound right. Hmmm.

Today's classes were my regular class: Readings in Modern Japanese, Bungo (classical Japanese) and Proseminar. I know most of the students in classical and and the prseminar, so its like a big gathering for me, and I think for them, too... well to a degree, maybe. Kizyr was there, as was Grom, Crotchety, and Windward_skies. Imahima, perhaps thinking OUTLOUD, said in a very disconcerted tone that classical J is "wierd". Ender is an incoming freshman and I thought I told her the course was full and I wouldn't add her, but there she was sitting next to the window. I told her it would be difficult to get her into the class and that I might have to ask her to leave. I didn't mean to sound rude or be a jerk, but fuafuahamu told that I DID sound mean, that this was exactly the attitude that intimidated her when she first took a class with me three years ago... To top it all off, I found out that she was legitimately in my class, that she had actually registered for the course. Turns out that another student, for whatever reason, decided to drop the course, changed his mind, and then wanted to come back in, but found out that the class was closed because Ender--who had religiously checked to see if there was an opening--took his spot. So now I have more students than even before. Oh yeah, sorry Ender. I didn't mean to sound mean. I'm just that way the first three weeks of school. I have to get all the wannabes out of my class. I will not put up with slackers.

Anyway, I tell them that classical J is hard. That it will entail a lot of re-learning strange J grammar. But here they are, all 16 of them. This is big for a bungo class, believe me. The readings class is going to be even more hornery. I have--get this--25 students signed in. This is a fourth year foreign language course. Can you believe this? I hate being popular... Hahahahhaah. Just kidding. I have NOTHING to do with it. The program we set up encourages many students to continue with the program and while they usually meet their curriculum requirements by the second year, they wanna continue not just to the thrid year, but to the very end, some even taking classical.

*sigh* I wanna raise.