goblins

Hey, it’s mid week of mid-semester. I’ve told generation Z to put away their cell phones more than I care to tell you.
Today, I referenced Chicago-the musical and was met with blank stares.
I worked a scene so rigorously I left the classroom sweating (I wasn’t acting, I was directing). Two weeks ago 3 of my 9 speech and dialect students had never heard of Jane Eyre.
They can apply false eyelashes like a rockette but they cannot smile when they walk into the room with airbuds in.
My majors are equally as late for class as my non-majors.
No one knows who Clarissa Explains it All is, but so many are dressed like her!
I have never met a more apathetic group of people in my life and to be honest-they terrify me. They are 19 to my 31 and we are as strange to one another as my great-great grandmother seems to me. They don’t know a world without technology. I argue having a paperback book in your hands is a gift and god send. They don’t want to stretch physically or mentally and I ask often: why you are taking Acting I if you didn’t want to speak in front of people?
Alas, despite their zombie like state and their sometimes inability to connect-I like them. Against my better judgement, I like them a lot. I root for them and tell them to drink a lot of water and get rest and do the work. And some days they listen. And most days they don’t and that’s ok too. Because college is hard, and being young is hard and feeling the pressure of doing well is…well, yeah…hard.
But Ron Wilson didn’t want to hear about it and neither do I!
So cut it out and show up! In my classroom, in your life. In this world. That’s what I tell them. They are glazed over like a Christmas Ham and pumped up on coffee.
Also, they don’t sleep! They will tell you this often, that’s why they didn’t do my work.
But I still like them. I like seeing them. Even the really grumpy ones. Even the ones who show up late like we are all hanging out at a soccer game instead of taking a college course.
I guess it’s love. And I join the great ranks of those who have loved me: Ron, Don, Cathy, Jerry, Jairo, Beth, David, Chris, Steve, Peter, Diane, David, Joseph, Robyn and Naoko.
And I’m happy to be here to do it