First class

My first class starts in about 2.5 hours (not that I'm nervously counting down or anything). It's a big, mean, double-whammy of a class -- 4 hours long and really two classes combined -- "Teaching of Writing" and "Writing Non-fiction."

Teaching of writing I'm cool with. I need to know how to do that. Writing non-fiction I am less cool with. From what I can tell, it's a lot of writing about yourself and your feelings and attempting to make some sort of "breakthrough" as a writer. I'm not saying I don't need the help; if you are reading this you know very well that I could use about a billion classes on improving my writing.

The thing is, I don't really like feelings. I don't like to talk about mine, and I definitely don't like having to react and respond to other people's. I think I'm an empathetic person -- friends can come to me with their problems and feel pretty safe that I will try to see things their way -- but, between you and I, it's hard! I usually have no idea why people feel the way they do or act the way they act; they baffle me. A two hour feelings assault masquerading as a class sounds terrifying.

The worst part: even if I make it out of there without having offended anyone and having learned something, I am 98% sure that, when I start teaching, I still will not understand why middle schoolers act the way they do.