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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Slippers and Stoles

Joining Ginny over at small things for another yarn along.

Over the next six weeks while I teach a summer course, I will be living half in the city, and half an hour north at my parents' house. This weekend was my first up there, and I was able to give my mom the slippers I knit her for mother's day. Luckily our feet are the same size, so I was able to shape them appropriately after felting. Although they came out looking slightly different, once I sewed on the straps, it was less obvious.

Over the weekend I also got a good chunk of the last bridesmaid stole done. I'm hoping to have it finished in two and a half weeks. We'll see!

My blocking wires and pins came in on Saturday, so I plan on pinning out a stole on my bed next time I leave for home and letting it block while I'm gone.

In the meantime, most of my reading has been for this Intro to Fiction class. (Yes, I lugged ALL of these books up to my parents' house with me.) Here and there I've been snatching some moments with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and two short story collections--one by Jhumpa Lahiri and one by Laura van den Berg. So far I am enjoying both. But even then, I am eying the collections for potential class material.

When I walked into the classroom for the first session last night, I have to admit I was initially intimidated. Which is saying something, because I had steeled myself against intimidation before walking in. I knew that 1) most of the students would be male, and 2) half of them would be seniors, and thus three years younger than me at most. But I did not expect a good third of them to be grown men. I'm not the best at judging ages, but a couple of them are certainly older than me.

I look young for my age, am pretty short, and can have a pretty dorky sense of humor when it comes to teacherly monologues. (I've found that "cool" doesn't work for me in the classroom, so dorkiness it is.) I wouldn't say that I have anxiety about maintaining authority in the classroom, but it's certainly something I'm aware of. And the first five minutes with a new class are vital in getting their respect and attention.

I had those first five minutes pretty well planned out, and I realized that I was going to have to switch registers. There was no way I could talk to men my age and older in the same way I had planned to talk to college students four and five years younger.

But it worked fairly well, I think. I maybe talked a bit too much, but they talked a lot too. Which is wonderful. And they responded to each other, which is great. I'm hoping that the rest of the session follows suit.

10 comments:

  1. Love the lace! What yarn is that ... it looks like cashmere? The slippers are so cute!

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  2. Oh congratulations on being on the last shawl! It sounds like you would be a great teacher :D

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  3. oh my, that must have been quite a surprise! i'm glad it seems to be working out, though.

    p.s. i'm very impressed with those slippers! and that you're on the last bridesmaid stole!

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  4. I made the same slippers for my daughter! So cute.

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  5. Those slippers are adorable. I'll bet your mom loved them!

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  6. I love those slippers! I have a pair that I wear only on special occasions as they are my absolute FAVES!

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  7. I love those slippers! I've eyed that pattern for a while but I've never tried them. Yours look fantastic!
    And the stole...oh my it's gorgeous!

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  8. haha - when I was teaching, I used the dorkiness schtick as well. It's probably more true to who I am, and involves a lot less forethought!

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  9. Those slippers are adorable!

    That sounds like a really interesting combination of students. Good luck teaching your class!

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  10. I'm loving that lace! What kind of yarn are you using here? It's gorgeous!

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