Monday, September 29

From Sarah Hepola's "Certifiable:"
I was a teacher once. Twenty-three years old, full of earnestness and swallowed literary ambitions. In fact, under the ‘Goal’ section of my résumé I actually wrote, ‘To inspire young minds.’ I handed out those résumés at job fairs to frumpy women in appliqué sweaters.

‘That’s pretty ambitious,’ they said.

I looked them in the eyes. ‘Yep.’

I was young and arrogant and I’d spent too many nights watching Dead Poets Society drunk. That film made teaching look like a kind of nifty performance space in which the teacher has the leading role, and I imagined myself in the classroom, cracking jokes, scattering Shakespeare like rose petals. Of course, at the end of Dead Poets Society a lead character kills himself. But by the time that part of the movie came around I was usually passed out.
Hmm. I wonder if I should write that down. "To inspire young minds." I rather like the tone of "To corrupt young minds," but I don't think they'd like that.

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