Dear Diary . . . day by day

Monday, January 29th, 2001 - Teaching

Last night, for some reason, David and I got into a discussion of Civil War History. Actually, I should say that David got ranting about the Battle of Chancellorssville and I was fascinated by the story he told.
Oh, yeah, we were discussing computer games and had gotten to his Civil War reenactment game, that's how we got on the subject.
Anyway, when I have more time (hah) I intend to do some of my own research on the subject. But it struck me how very well David explained the battle and the psychological unpinnings that made it go the way it did. And I couldn't help thinking what a shame it was that David didn't go the academic route. He would've been such an excellent professor.
I've been thinking alot lately about academia and schooling and how damn - elitist - some of these academics can get. It's one thing to be well-educated, but it kinda ruins it for me when academics are condescending to those of us without ivy league educations. Personally, I think it just alienates parts of the world that might not be so disinclined to a college education if it didn't have such a reputation.
Anyway, I don't have time to go into this too much right now (obvious from my broad-sweeping statements, I think) but my point is that I don't think David would've ended up one of those snooty academics. He's just too willing to spread his knowledge, to explain and make it real and interesting for his listener. What a good teacher he is/could be.

Exercise log:
Eh. Stretching but no cardio.
Writing log:
Was working on a new story when my computer crashed.
I'm currently reading:
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
Starlight 2 anthology edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden
The Snake Machine Thingie (my working title) - 1st (rough) draft by Craig Foster-Parker
This is really very good for a first draft of a novel, although I want to make Craig read some of Butler's stuff so he has a sense of what's been done before (just a few things, overall, his work is very original).
My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

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