Some days I feel really cool

Last night was my second summer class, and after warning my students that wheel throwing is hard and they will probably not have anything to show at the end of class, nearly every one of them had something to show at the end of class. I think this was due to lots of hands on help from myself and Ryan. As I've had students that just didn't get it no matter how many times I showed them or grabbed their hands, but after three weeks would come in and say some student from another class showed them a trick that worked (and is always something I know I showed them four or five times), I know its really some ineffable quality that brings this together. But it's moments like this that I really want some administrator / recruiter from an art dept. to walk through and say "damn! this is their first time on a wheel? You are some great teacher!" It has only once happened that way, and that's a whole other story.

So the students think I'm a bit nuts, and are impressed that even though I am shaped like a watermelon I can still center clay while leaning over a student from the side / shoulder. Maybe thats the trick -- if I can do this while pregnant, they can do it too. I do remind them that I have been doing this for 20 years (OMG, that's scary, but truly, my first college wheel-throwing class was in 1987), and when they have been doing it that long it will be easy for them too.

But I'm paying today. My upper thighs are sore and I am waddling crazily.