It was a rock n' roll harmony bus ride.
I read three sections from the Canturbury Tales to three different classes of Hutch's 12th Grade English students; I partook in the wonders of school lunch food; I commisserated with my old teacher friends; I had a rock n' roll good time (I said that already though).
As for the Chaucer, I don't think anyone was really prepared for the madness of 10 minutes worth of middle english, but as far as HS! kids go, it was received really well. I read The Pardoner's Prologue, pieces of the General Prologue, and a good chunk of the Pardoner's tale, and afterwards kids in all three classes I read to came up to say how cool it was to hear me speaking in Middle English (which to them sounde like Irish). Also, I came to the very astute realization that, I really like standing up before people and captivating them in literature. Any doubts I may have ever had towards a future in teaching are now pretty thoroughly quashed. (So now all I need to do is graduate, publish a ton of stuff and hope that someone's hiring in about a year and a half).
A bit about the food:
- Since I graduated, they installed "The FAST Lane" in the caf. No one uses the fast lane, because you needs the funny monies that no one has. I lost my place in the regular line (that stretched for MILES) because I mistakenly tried to jump into THE FAST LANE.
- I got free food...Not that I was trying to cheap-o the HS, but I guess my visitor status meant that I got to eat on someone else's bill. This is a good thing because,
- it was hamburger day and the hamburger looked more like a piece of country fried something. But it was neither fried nor country nor any identifiable form of something. I used a lot of mustard on that bad boy. But on the plus side, there were Tots. No I did not put them in my cargo pocket for later (though I was sorely tempted)
- They had more choices than just milk. This made me incredibly happy; I enjoyed the hell out of my Welches Grape Juice.
Old Commisserating
I was an art nerd in HS, and all of my English projects back then had a visual collaborative piece to them, much to the delight of both Hutch and Humes. And so I paid homage to the old art room (now remodeled) and was pleasantly surprised to see that the drawling of Frank Zappa attacking dragons on a ship still hung on Humes' wall (my gift to him on graduating), and that he kept my old Drawling table that I had for my very own through 11th and 12th grade (now the matte cutting table).
Hutch also told me that she still had the Romantic Era painting that I did after that Wordsworth poem about the Reaper. Yeah, I was like a pig in shit today. Everything was shiny and happy with all the good memories of HS and getting to impart some oddity upon the new blood.
Hopefully I can keep such a gig up year over year, because good lord, any excuse to read some Chaucer is a valid and much warranted excuse in my book. So pick up your Canturbury Tales and sing along with me as we wend our way on a jolly pilgrimage chock full of odd ball ruffians and gap-toothed women.
