--Jean Kerr

My first day on the job at the English Department went pretty well. I didn't actually do much, apart from answering the phone a half-dozen times, but I have the impression I'll be given a bit more work next week, once I'm settled in.

Not being a morning person, I ended up cutting it pretty close, arriving at the office about a minute after I was supposed to be there. To accomplish even that, I ran part of the way to college.

The problem with running partway to college, especially at the start of the day, is that, if you're like me, this will result in sweating quite a bit. This turned out to have two effects.

The minor one was that I spent the next half-hour mopping my brow. Annoying, but not the end of the universe.

The more major one was that I discovered that the cheap watch I bought last week isn't water resistant. And that my wrists were pretty sweaty, too.

It started working again about five hours later.

No matter how you slice it, it's a bit strange being a male in a Women's Studies class. As it happens, I'm one of two males in a class of about thirty people; in fact, I'm informed that, for whatever reason, there are invariably exactly two males in this particular class every semester, no matter how many people are in the class as a whole. Natural selection at work, perhaps; it's hard to say.

Anyway, this situation actually doesn't bother me, and I don't feel uncomfortable in the classroom or anything... but I am very much on guard against overriding others in the class. Which is rather out of character. But this is one class it really wouldn't be a good idea for me to dominate.

(Plus, as one of only two males in the class, there's the danger of ending up with disproportionate classroom time by trying to present a male perspective at every opportunity. Not that that's likely to be much of a problem in my case, but still...)

I think I'm going to be using the weekly writing assignments as my outlet for most of what I'd want to say there. Probably the best solution all around. Although we'll see what happens when the class dynamic gets more firmly established.

At any rate, it was a bit of a relief to go to English 255 later in the afternoon, and not have to worry about that sort of thing.

I confess that when it got to my turn, I found myself sorely tempted to start by asking the rest of the group whether they thought my jeans made me look fat. But I resisted the impulse, even though it would have made a serious point.

Ah, the dangers of a warped sense of humor...

Yeesh.