March 27: Coolest Thing, Playing Poet

I had the coolest thing happen to me this afternoon.

After I was done teaching my mythology class, I swung by the English Department office to check my mailbox.  I check my mailbox at least once a week.  It's not to see if anybody sent me mail.  My mailbox is always empty.  It's to remind my colleagues that I still exist, that I still teach at the university.

As I stepped into the mail room, I encountered a grad student swearing at his laptop.  "Come on, fucker," he was saying.  He followed it up with, "Fuck!"

I chuckled a little bit and said, "Problems, Dex?"  (That's not his real name, but I like the TV show Dexter.)

He said something really technical about computers that I didn't quite understand.  Basically, if the mouse ain't working or the screen goes black, I'm calling Information Technology.  But then Dex said, "Hey, Marty, do you have time to look at a poem of mine?"

I never have grad students ask me for writing advice.  I'm too unknown.  Too adjuncty.  To have Dex ask me for advice made me feel...legitimate.  I've been feeling a little down on myself recently.  Dex gave me the shot in the arm I needed.  I walked down to his office and looked at his poem.  It was the first time I've been treated like a poet for a long while.  I loved it.

Saint Marty's taking this little encounter all the way to the self-esteem bank.

This says it all...