"I totally bet she planned this..."

So: students. I loves 'em.

My Valentine's Day plan--because of course I am the type of teacher who has a Valentine's Day-specific class planned--was Tennyson's In Memoriam. I thought it might be too sad--dude has the market CORNERED on sad=love--but then I thought, "Whatevs, self. They're teens. They're, like, biologically constructed to dig Tenny's version of uber-emo love."

It turns out I was right! They ARE the target audience (when I selected only a few excerpts from the poem which makes me--a Victorianist through-and-through--blanch at the length) and they DID dig the emo. So do I, to be honest. I mean, dig it, peoples:

I hold it true, what'er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most,
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Then never to have loved at all.

I'm not gonna lie--that has hearts around it in my Private-Students-Will-Never-See-Or-Mock edition.

Then, when I had them in groups to compare Tenny's section 59 ("Come Sorrow -- live with me and be my wife") with the Marlowe we read a week ago ("Come live with me and be my love/ and we will all the pleasures prove...") and THEN comparing both to how they themselves feel/act about love---theeeeeen I overheard a student say, "This is a lot of stuff about love." Another student responded, "I totally bet she planned this."

STUDENTS. I WANT TO SCRUNCH YOUR CHEEKS SOMETIMES.

Comment fic? CHALLENGE: location

I have of late, the wherefore I know not prelims are evil incarnate lost the ability to write.

In honor of recently passing prelims (YAY!) and nearly dying of the plague the end of a particularly bad bout of flu, I want to do a few comment fics.

YOUR CHALLENGE: Pick a fandom/pairing and a location (the more specific the better). This is, of course, deepsix's bril idea.

MY CHALLENGE: Write a comment fic using that location as the inspiration.

I love location-based fic writing--my Italian art!AU was entirely inspired by the visual of the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. So. You can pick a city, a building, a park, a tree, whatevs--I will write you a fic about/inspired by that place.

You Can't Blame Me For Feeling Amorous verse + Paris for jenna_marianne HERE
Arthur/Eames + the praying hall of the Great Mosque of Córdoba for osaraba HERE
Dom/Cat + a red couch and fluffy curtains at a real place, I'm sure for dancinbutterfly HERE

More to come!

Caught And Sang In Flight

Title: Caught And Sang In Flight
Author: ifeelbetter
Word Count: 3,018
Summary: Arthur and Eames start a game where Arthur doesn't know the character Eames expects him to play and Eames doesn't know who sets the rules.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of value.
Notes: This was supposed to be the first round of the thing whose name I have forgotten...oh my, I am forgetful...the thing with the tropes and Arthur/Eames? The one where they were fake boyfriends? That thing. I am so very, very late for it. So. The idea was that it had to feature them pretending to be boyfriends and then I managed to turn that into a Dylan Thomas musing on identity and...drunkenness. I seem to love drunkenness. I swear I am not a boozer. (That was a lie.) Anyway. I manage to make everything funny end in a musing on identity and drunkenness so you must all expect that from me now.

( Rage, rage against the dying of the light / Do not go gentle into that good night )