Is this the part where my eyes start bleeding?

It may come as no surprise to those that know me that I've been working the equivalent of two full-time and one part-time job. I've always been a bit of a work-a-holic but I think I may have reached the proverbial end of my rope and I'm just about ready to climb back up and hang myself from it.

I'm exhausted but if I can find a way to keep up this pace, I may actually be able to make a significant financial contribution toward the marriage of two great minds!

The other thing that keeps me motivated is the impact I'm making on my students. Although it was probably a last ditch effort at brown-nosing after he showed up unprepared for class today, one of my students classified me as a helpful, easy to talk to professor and asked if he could write his classification essay about different types of professors. Of course I approved the assignment, but I also very sternly let him know that it had better be the best paper ever since I wasn't able to read his rough draft today. We'll see what happens.

Either way, I think I'm making a more significant contribution to society by teaching than I ever have doing anything else in my life and I love it. I'm learning about myself by challenging my students to think about and read minority literature to which they've never been exposed and, in turn, I'm learning more about how students learn, what they need to learn and what I can do to make learning fun and interesting.

A student in my 102 class asked me today when I was introducing In the Time of the Butterflies, "what stock do you have in this book anyway? Why is it so important to you and why did you choose it for us to read?" I answered by explaining that I'm very interested in minority literature and my definition of "minority" is any underrepresented group (i.e. African-Americans, Native Americans, women, Latinos, homosexuals, etc.). I'm just a hippie like that. We went on to discuss the similarities and differences between the two authors I'd chosen--James Baldwin and Julia Alvarez--and I think it clicked for them then.

The minority experience is the human experience of constant struggle against opposition and oppression and the moment we stop learning about and fighting for what we believe in, is the moment we fail to exist. I'll fight from my podium; bleeding eye balls and all.