The Teaching Front

Common Task: Lecture through a headache

Standards: Complete a lecture of two hours and fifty minutes on a topic of American History (to be determined by one’s location on the course timeline) in a logical, coherent manner without giving away the fact that you do, indeed, have a headache.

Well, that is what I did. I went from 1910 hours to the end of class covering a summary of European History, setting up English Colonization, talking about the test run against the Irish, then making our way to the New World. Then I covered tobacco, rice, sugar, naval stores, slavery (slavery and racism came up repeatedly and they will again) before moving off to talk about the Quaker Religion.

You know, if you had to find something positive to talk about, I think the Quakers are a good place to start. So I spent thirty minutes on that.

Tomorrow for my Tuesday-Thursday classes we’ll go over the same material. That should bring everyone up on line with French Colonization and the French-Indian War.

We seem to be moving pretty fast this time around. Or maybe it is just the headache.

The Fitness Front

Headcold bedamned, I put in my cardio today. Thirty minutes at the target heart rate of 150 per minute. The scale says I lost two pounds and the body fat scanner says I’m down from 26 percent to 24.5 percent. Maybe the illness is the cause, who knows.

Or cares. My Body Building coach figures that for every hour additional I taught last semester, I gained a pound.

Which might be part of why I turned down a substitute opportunity earlier today. I really needed that two hour nap.

So it goes.

Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri