today was good

So, you ever have one of those days where you're afraid you'll have to pay your mechanic $350 but it turns out that all the work you needed was still under warranty, so all you'll have to pay is a $30 re-inspection fee? That's today. Somehow $30 seems like pocket change as long as I can keep (i.e. pay bills with) that other money. Hooray! Plus, I got my first "Summer Bonus money" paycheck. So I'm feeling good today.

In other news, I randomly got an opportunity to teach a literature course in the fall! It's pretty exciting, because as grad students we're under contract with the Composition department to teach composition courses. They usually let some older PhD students get into teaching literature, but I haven't heard of too many opportunities of Master's students teaching a straight literature course. It all came about in a funny way--long story short, I was trying to drop the class of a teacher who works for the Comp Lit department and was looking urgently for someone to teach a class and so, you know, kismet*--but basically in the fall I'll be teaching . . . Introduction to Asian Literature. I know! Why me? I don't know! Upside: I'm really excited about teaching literature (which I care about) more than writing (which I care about but can be really dull at times too, because freshment aren't so great at writing). Downside: 1) I don't really know anything about Asian Lit, so I can't just not prepare like I do sometimes with writing, and 2) The class has 55 students! 55! That's kind of ridiculous for a literature class. But that means there'll be more tests and only one (at most) paper. So that works out, I suppose. Plus, I can totally get away with watching Asian films in this class. I'm thinking "House of Flying Daggers" because I loved it and something by Kurosawa at least. I think there are a lot of emerging Korean films as well, so that's at least 3. Any suggestions on books or anything?

I think it will be a great resume thing and a really interesting opportunity, though I'm totally nervous about preparing a syllabus and all that. It'll be at least as much work (or more) as any class I'll be taking.

Anyway, it's been an exctiting day! That much is for sure.

I decided to look this word up to make sure I was using it correctly. Turns out it means "The Will of Allah" or fate. Nice. I'll take the former.