Where Are My Shoe?

Silence reigns. It is 3 am and I hurt like hell. While waiting the usual 30-40 minutes for the Percocet to begin to work, I started to go through a pile of old papers stashed in a box in my office closet. (Anything requiring the stash designation ends up in my office closet, be it mine, Fred's, La Belle Bianca Castafiore's, or the odd unattributable find...)

In a folder holding a mélange of basic teaching junk (Excuse me: junque), I found my favorite two First-Day-of-French-One offerings.

On the first day of university level French One class, I always had the students write and turn in the sentence or sentences that they wanted most to be able to say at the end of the course. As an ice-breaker, I would translate a few of them, finding topics with lots of cognates, etc.

I spoke in the target language only, so that first class is generally terrifying to the students. I literally refused to let them flee from the classroom by blocking the door. By the end of the first week, they are happy as clams.

Anyway, this took place at an elite private university that prides itself on its incredible academics, general good looks, and high standards. And so it was with malicious glee that I reread these two papers tonight:

1. Where are my shoe?

and

2. I am a brain surgen.

Ah, je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir!