Life Lessons

Last year's lesson from art history TAing was, "Don't smoke pot before the midterm." A lesson we can all learn from! This year's ancillary lesson: "Don't drop acid before you write your final paper." Remember this, folks. The grade you save might be your own.

While I may occasionally bemoan the writing skills of the average student at the art school where I'm an adjunct, may I just take this opportunity to say how much I love teaching at this school? It's the end of the semester, student projects are due, and I walked into the main hall this morning to find three of my past students nailing together what appeared to be an enourmous teepee, made of gauze and a metal armature of some kind, with lights inside it, standing in a pool of water. The entire back hall was full of the most amazing damn woodwork/furniture projects I've ever seen, shelves and benches and tables that leave The Jetsons behind in their space-age, retro coolness, all waiting to be photographed for the students' portfolios. I passed a girl was sitting chatting on her cell phone, who had next to her an angel sculpted entirely of matchsticks (the long ones) and straw. I went to get a drink during the exam I was proctoring, and found one of the two drinking fountains had been enveloped in soft, velvety fabric--it was like Christo came and did a surgical strike on the plumbing at Herron. Went out to the parking lot, and there's three people in a cherry picker hanging round sculptures on the large sycamore tree outsdie the door; they looked like blobs of colored melty wax, or possibly a giant homage to Wham-o's late, lamented Superelastic Bubble Plastic. What can I say? Pure joy.