And I look around today, and I think: yowza. This, this is special. I’m extraordinarily lucky (and discover every day that the amount of luck I experience is directly proportional to the amount of effort I put into the work I do).

I mention this because I have now been teaching, at the college/university level, for more than a year, but today was the first day I was ever observed. I found out about the observation a few days ago, and just the idea made me nervous: ZOMG authority! What if they realize I’m a sham? What if they realize I’m, well, me, because no matter how many novels I write and how many people love my work and how many classes I teach, it’s still difficult to think of myself any differently. I’m just me, and I still feel like I’m goofy and silly and really lucky to be anywhere at all. Maybe that’s a self-esteem issue, or maybe it’s the truth. I don’t know. I just know that even though USC recognized me as an expert in writing, and even though I taught my students well enough that I went so far as to inspire them, in a few notable cases, it’s still difficult to realize that.

But today, the totally rad woman who is the composition coordinator of our department sat in my class to observe me.

When I was younger, my parents enrolled me into a Catholic school. Second grade was my start, and by then I’d already honed my reading skills pretty well (largely thanks to my grandfather and my parents). Given that I was a bit advanced, in terms of reading, I somehow found myself as the narrator of our school’s Christmas pageant thingy. You know: “And lo, the angels of the lord appeared unto the shepherds,” and etc.

I was, basically, Linus.

And I was excited, but I was nervous. Throughout my whole life, one recurring theme is how much I just want everyone to like me. I just want to please people (this does not conflict with writing, books, and blogging). And I wanted everyone to think I was awesome at reading, and I got myself so completely and entirely worked up I made myself completely sick with the idea that I might fail, somehow, that I might ruin those people’s Christmases because all they wanted was to see their kids in the pageant and who was the little guy squeaking his way through the nativity narrative? I hated the idea, and I got so nauseated I had to go to the nurse’s office (though I’m not sure I ever actually puked).

I’m pretty sure I was instructed to lay down, and at some point, the head-nun of our school, or at least the assistant head-nun, called my mother to relay the now-famous (in my family) news:

“Rita, Willy’s got a case willies.”

And man oh man, did Willy have a case of the willies today. I mean, seriously. The woman was scheduled to attend my afternoon class, and so all day I was both anticipating and dreading the experience. I ended my second class with a few minutes to spare, and I walked to the next with the sort of giddy anticipation you always get when you realize, oh, for shizznit, yo, this is gonna count for something.

In fact, I was reminded of the girl to whom I was engaged many, many years ago. She was a singer and used to go on auditions, and before she did she used to do breathing exercises. Tongue-trills and all the likes. And during the fifteen minutes leading up to that class, I kept feeling like I should be doing warming up exercises or something.

Through it all, though, I had a plan.

Because through more than a year, I’ve discovered that when I’m nervous, and when I’m not entirely sure of something, the best thing in the world I can do is hand it to my students. It’s been my great privilege and honor, through it all, to stand in front of them, and the one thing in the world I remain forever cognizant of is that I’m not there for me or for a paycheck or for the administration or to be observed so much as I am there for them, and I accept that honor with both gratitude and humility.

Which is why, when it came down to it, I stopped thinking I had to be great, and awesome, and remembered that I was only there because my students are great and awesome. I’ve always believed in transparency, in total honesty, and I feel like that is what carried me.

And yes, the person observing me evaluated me, and yes, I got the sort of amazing evaluation that requires the use of words like “brilliant” and “awesome,” but I know that if I performed well as a teacher, it is because I stood on the shoulders of the giants who are my students.

I note all this for a couple of reasons, the main of which is to share it. Because quite a few of the readers who follow this blog remember when I posted them from my parents’ basement in New Jersey, long before I managed to find my way to LA, and to you I’m as grateful as I am to my students. I recently saw a blog in which an agent asked why writers wrote, why they continued to submit their work to the slushpile, which became a post that generated, literally, four pages of comments ranging from “Because I have to” to “For validation.”

And while I take nothing away from anyone else’s reasons for anything, those are not mine.

I teach for my students, and I write for you.

This is my privilege, and for it, I am grateful.

And just like I’m thanking you, right now, I will thank my students on Thursday. I will tell them that the observation/evaluation went well, but I will also tell them that, if I did so, it is because they carried me through. And I will tell them that I feel it is my privilege to continue to stand before them and to guide them, just as it is my privilege that you keep reading this blog and what I offer.

I am in awe of my students, as I am in awe of you.

Today, one of my students surprised me. We had a speaker-series evening this week, where a Democrat and a Republican were meant to discuss the mobilization of young voters but which actually became a debate about technology and its efficacy. Which wasn’t bad, exactly, but seemed to be the wrong issue. The Republican called this “Politics for the iPod Generation,” and effused about how great technology is. At one point, he mentioned Live-Aid and how excellent it was that it had increased awareness of how many people in the world were starving.

I wanted to get up and say, well, perhaps, but how many of them are now eating.

Because awareness is all well and good, but should not be confused with action.

One other thing I mentioned was this iPod thing; not everyone has one, certainly. USC is smack between Compton and Watts, in Los Angeles; we get reports from the Department of Public Safety everyday, concerning muggings and etc. And I asked how many people around us actually had iPods, or access to the technology.

And my student raised his hand and said, sure, but one might wonder whether those people vote, anyway.

And it stopped me. Brilliant.

It brings up whole other issues, of course, but that’s beside the point. I was just thrilled to catch them thinking (rather than, you know, sleeping, which has occurred a few times this semester, now).

One thing I’ve noticed is that I think some of these students feel like those people who don’t vote. They seem to continuously seek “the right answer,” while the whole point of the course is that there isn’t one; there’s only their answers. Their papers don’t depend on what they say but how they make their case.

I think they’re getting it.

Here’s hoping.

By the way, new pictures over at Imagery.

It’s been a question since at least as far back as I was a substitute teacher for a simple reason: I’m not comfortable with Mr. Entrekin. It just doesn’t fit me as an appellation. My father won’t let anyone call him “Mr. Entrekin”; when someone tries, he informs him that was his father, who has long since passed away–they can call my dad ‘Steve.’ (That’s his name, after all. Calling him Doug would just be off-putting.) It’s not a simple last name, either: ENT-ruh-kin is not obvious on first reading (many go with en-TREK-in, which is just plain wrong).

When I was a sub, I solved the problem by letting the students call me “Mr. E”.

But that didn’t feel right for a college classroom.

Some of my colleagues just let their students call them by their first names. But there’s something– in my head, my students are paying as much for an experience as they are for the information. They are none of them older than 19, which puts me a solid decade ahead on the age scale, but more than that; I feel I’ve earned some degree of distinction, to distinguish myself from them. I don’t feel as though they are my peers; I feel, in fact, as though we are in a relationship very much related to a business transaction, providing a service to them as consumers.

The thing is, though, it rarely comes up. They rarely need to address me. Which is why, last semester, it became a running question, for a few weeks, until a solution presented itself when a student settled on a title.

He called me sensei.

And it just fit.

It was perfect. Because Bob Kennedy taught me as much about writing and thinking as he did about faith, and he did so by forcing me to learn it. My feelings about writing are intricately tied to my beliefs about faith and spirituality and life, as well.

Later during last semester, I received a few emails generated by the college database, which addressed me as ‘Professor Entrekin,’ and so validated that title, in a way; if USC recognized me as a professor, I had earned the right to let students call me one.

But that other title, that student-chosen title, the one that came from one pupil who knew nothing of my background . . . that fit. I am a guide moreso than I am a teacher; I am there less to teach or instruct them than I am to help them learn.

It’s a subtle distinction, perhaps, but I think they sense it.

Today, he posted about his thoughts on blogs and bookselling. Scalzi is a blogger who blogged before ‘blogging’ actually existed as a word (I believe the word dates back to around 2001. Neil Gaiman is another); which, coincidentally, was before Scalzi actually had anything to sell. Nowadays he’s a multiple nominee for multiple awards (and has won several, including one for best new writer), but I loved his last paragraph:

“Personally I think people think about all this crap too hard. The reason to do a blog is because you want to. If you do it for any other reason, people will be able to tell, and it’s probably going to fall on its ass. The reason I think Whatever does well is because I like doing it, and I’ve liked doing it all the time I’ve done it. Simple enough.”

That’s why you’re here, actually. I haven’t talked about it much, but by summer of last year, I’d basically had a MyMeltdown; blogging on MySpace had become akin to my years in corporate America, or perhaps more accurately, my years temping. The site seemed to have become about either bashing or the relentless pursuit of more popularity. When I got the letter accepting me into my lectureship, I realized that I needed to learn how to reconcile my teaching life with my writing life. I realized I’d be standing, soon, before a group of students and attempting to play a very particular role, and I wished not to deviate from it. I didn’t want them to think of me as pretty much anything besides their professor, because I never did until I was well out of college.

The other thing I’ve already alluded to; Rupert Murdoch’s already bulky pockets. For my second assignment last semester, I guided my students through a prompt on journalistic integrity; what does it mean, who has it and how did they earn it, and can blogging fill the same role. Many explored the idea of conglomeration; that having a certain company behind you can help your credibility, but it also creates problems if it’s the wrong company, or if said company is concerned almost solely with ratings, as many seemed to be. Most noted that they didn’t believe anything they saw on Fox News.

That assignment helped prompt my decision to start this up. I learned as much through that assignment as they did. And now, it’s good to be back. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t realized what I had until it was gone so much as I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I came back.

Thans for coming back with me. I missed you.