Saturday, May 26, 2007
Job # 9: Creative Writing T.A.
While going to grad school, I taught introductory creative writing classes to college students. It was easy, but low-paying work.
I remember, once after class, walking back to the parking garage with a non-traditional student from my class, a retired businessman. He was maybe a retired CEO. I'm probably exaggerating his success in my memory, but he'd done very well for himself.
"I've tackled the world of business," he'd said on the first day of class, "and now that I have time I want to try to tackle the world of the arts." A statement like that tends to set off warning signals, but he was a good guy, smart and respectful. He brought a knowledge of the world to the class without the resistance to learning new things that can sometimes plagues older students. He took the assignments more seriously than the other students, and, frankly, sometimes more seriously than I did.
He seemed to think I had some secret knowledge to impart, but really I was just a kid who went to grad school right out of college because I didn't know what else to do. And I was about to graduate grad school with the same amount of directionlessness. It was odd that as a grad student I was already more cynical about the "world of art" than a businessman in his 60s.
We got to the parking lot and saw that our cars were parked next to each other. His was a BMW and mine was a Taurus with no air conditioning and no door handles on the driver's side because someone had ripped them off outside a bar one night and I didn't have enough money to fix them.
So, there we stood, between our cars, him next to his driver's side door, and me by the passenger side of mine. "I really admire what you can do," he said, stepping into his car.
"Thanks," I replied, and crawled into my car through the passenger door, scooching awkwardly over to get behind the wheel.
