First Day as a TA

"When Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted by prim rows of 'shining morning faces' and bright, inquisitive eyes. She hung up her hat and faced her pupils, hoping that she did not look as frightened and foolish as she felt and that they would not perceive how she was trembling. She had sat up until nearly twelve [1:30] composing a speech she meant to make to her pupils upon opening the school. She had revised and improved it painstakingly, and then she had learned it off by heart. It was a very good speech and had some very fine ideas in it, especially about mutual help and earnest striving after knowledge. The only trouble was that she could not now remember a word of it."

--Anne of Avonlea

So I walk into the room, of course late, because I'd gotten nervous and left the books I was using in the last room I'd been in (now I know why professors distractedly wander the halls talking to themselves and getting lost--they're nervous before the classes they're always teaching).

I make the students go around and introduce themselves and say their favorite book or author and an occupation they can see themselves in (I said mayor). The first boy to introduce himself said Hemingway. And of course, I said, "Absinthe!" (I don't even know if Hemingway drank it!). I said, "You know absinthe is legal for a little while because of some legislation that lapsed." (Frankly, I don't know if that is true, either. All of my students are looking at me, wide-eyed. The clincher was when I was said, "You should go buy some quick." They are still all just looking at me. And then it hits me that they're all like 17 or 18.

That was my first real act as a teacher--to suggest that my kids drink absinthe. We all had a good laugh and the rest of the class passed swimmingly.