Random thoughts on such an odd day:

It started off early this morning when I ran into a girl I went to high school with at my local gas station. She had locked her keys and her young child in the car. Her husband wasn’t answering his cell so I stayed while she called the police, but when they got there I left as I was late for my internship. The kid was fine, just looking at us from the car seat, too strapped in to come to his own rescue.

I run into people I know everywhere in this city. This social part of my identity seems very real and tangible to me, but apparently I also hold opposing values. Last night at House of India I was told that I have a hermit streak a mile wide. This is not the first time I’ve been told that. Years and years ago I remember being surprised by a friend’s assertion that I was by nature a hermit. I guess I go to extremes in both my social and asocial behavior.

I haven’t been at my internship for a few days since I have almost all the hours I need so I want to space contact out and get some other things done. Several of my students sincerely told me that they had missed me. I have a great bunch of kids and I am really looking forward to next semester when I can really focus on teaching them. I am just around in the class right now as a helper, next semester it’s all me.

I spent an hour today helping a kid revise her article for the school newspaper, that’s something I do a lot, and she has a real gift for writing. You should all quit your jobs now and become teachers. In the affective dimension there is just no beating the teaching profession – both for highs and lows. No, with all you teaching then I still would be out of work, scratch that and keep on doing what you were doing.

I learned a new word today, which doesn’t happen that often.

Conation, some web definitions:

“A behavioral intention with respect to an attitude in a particular context.”

“One of the three aspects of the mind, in particular dealing with "willing and desiring", the others being cognition (awareness) and affection (feeling or emotion).”

“They may work as a whole, but any one may dominate any mental process. Along with cognition and affect, conation is one of three aspects of mind. It refers to the ability to act on what is known. From the Latin verb "conan" which means to attempt or to strive.”