If you're gonna dine with them cannibals...

sooner or later you're gonna get eaten. (Nick Cave)

Straight to the B-Pump climbing gym after school: how long before those red routes disappear under my chalky hands?

At home, Nick Cave's newest on the CD player and a can of Sapporo on my desk, The Striking Girl: Sayuri playing on broadband via www.ifilm.com: Pokemon, this aint.

Tomorrow's another short day, and I'm taking the Photography Club students to the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu.

I can't believe these are the most interesting observations I can make in the week since I last posted. The life of a teacher is... focused.

The Devil On My Shoulder

The tests are marked, the short answers evaluated, and the essays graded on a rubric. Learning skills have been tracked, and report card comments written. The good/bad news will be broken to students tomorrow, and the parents will be in next week for interviews.

Just another mid-term crunch.

And, in another six weeks, time for finals.

But tonight, tonight I am free of all teacherly responsibility: Sigur Ros on launchcast.com, a Sapporo tallboy open on the computer desk, a pot of bean and chicken curry in the fridge, and the devil on my left shoulder.

Think I'll really bust loose tonight, and finish my - very late, since I started the program last summer - grad school application essay.

Ahoy! It's the teacher's life for me.