Some of the best advice Robin Black (go buy If I Loved You I Would Tell You This before continuing) ever gave me, was on the importance of “treating your inner writer.”

While I’m sure she said this in a far more elegant (and possibly award-winning) way, she made this fantastic point in one of our creative writing classes about how necessary it is to give yourself little rewards for doing… well, just about anything when it comes to your writing. It’s something I’ve carried with me ever since those graduate school days.

It’s a simple concept really, but an important one.

Writing is a pain. As much as I love it, sitting down and dedicating a solid few hours to working on my new book, drafting up another essay, or fiddling around with blogs on Geekadelphia… it takes a lot of effort. There are so many other things I would rather be doing. I live in an awesome city, full of amazing restaurants and cultural events. My friends are all social media addicts, and are easily accessible as distractions. There is always something more fun to engage in that isn’t the solitary act of slumping over my netbook and gazing at that intimidating, glowing screen.

As the weather gets cold and I just want to stay inside, treating myself has become a serious means of motivation, and Robin’s advice has been on my mind in a big way.

I find its easier to tear myself away from, say, a game of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, when I’m promising myself a tall gingerbread spiced latte at Starbucks. The urge to order delivery and watch a movie is negated by treating myself to tortilla chips from El Fuego, a local burrito joint, and writing by the restaurant’s front window. I force myself out to the Green Line Cafe for a hot tea whenever new episodes of my favorite shows hit Hulu Plus, telling myself I can watch them after I finish at least an hour of writing there.

There’s this joke I like to bring up, from Family Guy, about writers having to write in public because OMG how else would people know they were writers. It’s hilarious and probably true for some people. For me, I’m out and about treating myself so I will write.

Shrug.

Like I said, the idea is simple. Whether you’re fussing over a book, an essay, a blog post, or a poem (or broem, sup Brian), remember to treat your inner writer. You’ll feel better about yourself, and get work done.

Treat. Yo. Self.

So Campus Splash published another one of my rants recently, this one about teaching Cause & Effect rhetoric… using Nerf Guns and an intense game of Humans vs. Zombies outside of Peirce College. The activity roused up my students and even caught the attention of Peirce’s alumni association.

While the essay didn’t take off the way my Love & Text piece did, I’m still pretty pleased with it, and flattered that Campus Splash continues to give me a platform to write about my love of teaching.

Give the piece a read. Maybe you’ll like it.

So I recently received word that one of my essays from my graduate thesis project, which I worked on with Robin Black of If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This fame (name drop!), is going to be published via The Apiary, a Philadelphia literary journal I absolutely adore.

Entitled The Good, the Bad & the Tupperware, the essay tells the story of my Mom’s love of preserving things, be it “good” paper towels or “good” Rubbermaid bins, and the day I had to destroy one of her beloved containers… in order to  save a snapping turtle in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

This is the first in a collection of essays I’ve written about Summer camp life, and was the first original essay I’ve ever read out loud to a group of people (during my graduate presentation). I’m thrilled that soon more people will get a chance to read it, and potentially laugh at the antics therein.

Since graduation Robin has been on me to do something with these pieces. At last, one of them has found a home. Now to submit my next one to another journal.

[This post originally appeared on Campus Splash, here!]

I have fond memories of playing the Oregon Trail in grade school.

It was one of those games that, when our instructor really didn’t feel up to teaching, he/she could tell us to boot up our old Apple II’s and go on a virtual adventure across America. My friends and I would name ourselves after the various characters, laughing and jeering at one another across the classroom when one of us died from a snake bite or dysentery, the later of which no one even understood, it just sounded gross. The game always held a special place in my heart, and I was quick to download the various remakes (particularly Gameloft’s excellent iPhone version) for nostalgia sake. However, I was never able to bring the game into my classroom.

Until I picked I Was Told There’d Be Cake, a hilarious collection of personal essays by Sloane Crosley.

Inside, Crosley rants about Oregon Trail in a piece entitled Bring Your Machete to Work Day. Using Oregon Trail as a framing device for describing herself and her life as an angst ridden I-want-to-kill-my-Algebra-teacher student, the essay is the perfect accompaniment to my Intro to Composition courses at Peirce College; specifically, when I start teaching narrative and classification writing.

Before diving into the lesson and reading Crosley’s essay, I have my students play the original, Apple II Oregon Trail on their computers in class. The students play the game for a full half hour, sometimes longer if they’re having a hard time finishing. Usually they’ll name the characters after friends and family, but in some cases, those who have played the game before, name them after enemies. Teachers they’ve hated, sports figures they loathe, or people who have wronged them recently. When it’s time to ford the river, they laugh and watch their wagon perish beneath the waves.

Most students are surprised when they get to Crosley’s essay, and discover how much they have in common with the writer. How they too have used the game to describe themselves.

It’s this sort of funny, entertaining in-class activity more professors should utilize. Get rid of the Powerpoint, stop playing on the Whiteboard, and get creative. Think outside the box. Otherwise, your ass is going to be fording the flooding river, dying of dysentery, or being neglected when you get a snake bite.

About a week or so ago, I made a joke about using Cee Lo’s music video for F*ck You in the classroom as an example of cause and effect in narrative. Laughs were had, comments were made, Like buttons were clicked on Facebook… and then I thought about it a little more. Because seriously… why the hell not?

The music video introduces us to a young Cee Lo Green, his toy garbage truck in hand, smitten with a girl who only has eyes for another young boy, who happens to have a toy Ferrari. As Cee Lo’s character evolves through the music video’s story, we witness him in his adolescence, a high schooler working as a short order cook. And like all standard adolescent teens, he’s awkward, haphazard, clumsy… and alas, this costs him the attention of the girl he adores.

Come college, he again has his heart broken, in a terrible public fashion. This becomes the catalyst for his character’s drive towards something better, the riches he’s always deserved. And eventually, this leads to some wonderful poetic justice.

One of the best things about the video and the story, is that this is clearly a tale being told to an audience by a reliable narrator. He doesn’t leave out the painful details; his early childhood heartbreak, his awkward adolescence, his public embarrassment as a young adult…

Indeed, at the 3:03 mark we witness the narrator trying to dismiss and forget these hurtful memories… but he continues the story. An unreliable narrator (here’s a Wikipedia link for ya’ll) would have utterly vilified the antagonists… the girl, the other boys, etc. Instead, he reveals all the truths, no matter how painful and embarrassing they may be.

I always stress to my students to write about what they know. Composing about heartache, something Cee Lo clearly knows about, makes the short narrative in F*ck You a fantastic study in crafting something creative and genuine. I hope my students are inspired to do the same… but with a little less swearing.

Class dismissed.

The other day I talked about giving away books to my students. Why I do it and where I manage to get so many. And whilst the giant box in my room overflows with novels, poetry, and plays, there is one book that I collected at a past flea market that sits on my shelf. One book I cannot bring myself to giveaway, and not because it sells for a lot on Amazon. This is the story, of Mr. Nice.

There’s a certain character you expect to see selling wares at flea markets. Maybe they own a million cats. Maybe they’re creepy and sell old World War II memorabilia. Maybe they smell like old curtains and mothballs. Whatever the case, you certainly don’t expect to see a six foot tall, muscly, model-type with long, flowing Fabio-esque blonde hair and an Australian accent, selling grappling hooks, skis, snowshoes, and other adventuring gear on a folding aluminum table.

The Adventurer, as I’ll call him in this story, had a large number of books, ranging from popular pieces of fiction to fantastic travel narratives. I bought them all, packing them into my canvas bags. When I said thank you and started to gather my things, he abruptly stopped me, and insisted that I take a beaten up paperback with me.

“Trust me mate,” the Adventurer said, “this book is well traveled. It’s… it’s got a lot of soul.” He tossed me the book, its pages flapping wildly through the air before I caught it, snapping it shut.

I looked at him quizzically. “A lot of soul?” I looked down at the book, it didn’t seem like anything special. “What do you mean?”

“Back when I lived in Australia, I bought that book,” he began, promptly ignoring all the other customers gathering around his table. “I was heading to England on vacation, and read some of it on the plane ride there. Read a little more while in London, and eventually, I finished the book on the flight back home. Sold it at a used bookshop outside of Melbourne, the same one I bought it from before I left.”

Again, I flashed him a confused look. “Sold it?”

He nodded. “Fast forward three years, and I’m walking past a cafe downtown. I spot this beautiful woman. She’s reading Mr. Nice, and I figured this would be my way in. My icebreaker. I go over, we talk, and then I see something… my name, written on the front cover. It was the same book I had sold back to the used bookshop, three years ago!”

“No way!” I exclaimed, flipping the book over. Sure enough, there was his name, scribbled in fading marker.

“So we get to talking,” he continued, “and we have so much in common. She loves the outdoors, rock climbing, etc. She’s from Philadelphia, on vacation in Australia. We spend almost her whole vacation together. We fall in love. Months later, I pack my things, and I move here for her. We get married. All because of that little book there.” With this, he points at the book, which I’m still holding.

“What an amazing story!” I said, beaming and practically shouting. This was the sort of thing you only heard in the movies, or in some quirky, romantic comedy. I looked back at the book, the cover creased, pages bent and dogeared. Well traveled indeed. “But,” I began, “but why would you get rid of something so precious?”

“Ah,” he said casually, “we’re getting divorced. I’m moving back to Australia.”

…

As much as I’d like to give this book away to one of my students, or maybe make some money off it on Amazon, I can’t do it. Every time I see it on my shelf, I think of the Adventurer, back in Australia, and I wonder if he’s okay, nursing his broken heart. There’s a movie coming out soon, based on Mr. Nice. Has he seen the posters? The IMDB site?

How will he handle it? How does anyone handle a recurring, painfully memory? You can’t kill all the memories, you can only make new ones. As much as you might want to, you can’t give away everything.

Hold it together, Adventurer, where ever you are, for all of us Mr. Nices out there. If I can make it, I know you can too.

Every Saturday morning, I start my day off with a slightly strange routine. I hop on my iPhone, load up Craigslist, and search for flea markets and sidewalk sales. Yes, this sounds like a highly unusual ritual for a guy in his late 20′s living in a big city, but there’s a reason.

During my undergrad, I spent most of my time working a terrible retail job to pay for school, transportation to my horrible internship-from-hell in NYC, and when I could afford it… books. While in New York City, I’d visit The Strand, and when I was at my job at the local mall, I’d dig through the bargain bins at the Borders outlet store on my lunch break. With the pressures of school, family life, and the future stampeding towards me, reading kept me sane. Diving into classics and reading obscure pieces of clearance fiction (consequently, I found one of my favorite novels in a dollar bin), really helped me hold it all together.

I promised myself that if I ever got out of this rut, if things turned out the way I planned, I’d do my best to make sure my future students, whoever they were, would be able to find some peace the same way I did. Through books.

So every Saturday, I write down the most promising-looking sidewalk sales, grab a bundle of canvas totebags, and hit the streets early. I fill these sacks up with all kinds of books, from poetry anthologies to popular fiction, non-fiction historical epics to mass market paperbacks… anything that will get my students reading. I’ll spend $20 or so every weekend, come home with two dozen books, and dump them in a large box in the corner of my bedroom.

Come Tuesdays and Thursdays, the first 20 to 30 minutes of class involve me giving handfuls of books away. Sometimes the students are excited about the books, especially when I have something popular. Other times, it’s like a silent auction, not a soul raising their hand for a Shakespeare play or the third copy of Dante’s Inferno I’ve brought in that month. If anyone so much as scratches their nose, they get stuck with the book. They’ll whine and roll their eyes, but I know they will appreciate it later down the line.

Because who knows. For every student that complains when they get a copy of The Canterbury Tales or an Ernest Hemingway collection, there’s a student who was probably just as stressed and terrified about life as I was. Maybe they’ll open up whatever book I threw to them from across the room, and find a similar, calming feeling.

Today’s Friday. Tomorrow’s a brand new day for rummaging. Wish me luck.

Omg! Professor Smith brought us pizza! Yay!

During my years as a student, I always dreaded the final exam, and dreamed that one day, I’d be in a situation where the professor would do something really cool. Like, give me an A for refusing to write a final paper.

Me: Here’s what I think of your test, Professor! *RIPS*
Teacher: You stood up to me… that was the test.
Cue bad 1980′s synth-pop music, possibly Phil Collins

But alas, these sort of things never happened, and I was always handed one of those dreadful blue books. I loathed those, and as a result, I’ve never dished out a final exam in any of my courses. A final paper that my students can write at home… yes. That way there’s no pressure, and I get creative, well written, critical papers.

I do enjoy psyching my students out though.

Oh NOOOO! A final exam AND knock off Rite Aid Soda!

At the end of every semester, I throw my students a little party. Pizza. Soda. Chips. They’ve earned it. I always ask the pizza delivery folk for one extra box, an empty one, and fill it with fake final exams. When the students walk up to get a slice… OH NO! An exam!

They grumble back to their seats, eventually realizing that the paper is nothing but Latin.

So on the last day we eat pizza, talk about the semester, go over their final papers, and leave on a high note. The students talk about what they learned, what they got out of the class (or didn’t). I want them to leave happy.

Now, I LOVE bringing in books to give away to my students. I hunt for them at local flea markets, and dish them out at the start of every class. So I was incredibly moved when, on the last day of class, two of my students (admitably my favorites in the class) gave me this little bundle of books as a going away gift.

Now, what makes this especially touching and thoughtful, is that they came on my blog, and saw my Best American Essays post… and bought the editions I was missing. How awesome is that?

Sigh. I do love teaching. Can’t wait for the Spring 2010 semester at Peirce.

It’s Armageddon… I need Bruce Willis…

One of my favorite things about teaching is bringing new and clever ways of educating into my classroom. Most of the time, this means handing out bizarre and humorous essays to my students, or engaging them in some sort of wacky in-class writing activity. For examples, last week, I had several of my students proof read and correct a classic Prince of Nigeria spam email, in order to make it a more effective persuasive piece, since we were going over Persuasion and Argumenative writing.

This past class, I brought in a couple of literal music videos, a hilarious internet phenomenon that involves folks singing about what’s actually going on in the video. The students watched the original video, followed by the literal one, and we talked about how the language effectively changes what they are seeing. We compared and contrasted the lyrics, the videos, and the new messages.

I used Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, A-HA’s Take On Me, and my favorite of the bunch,  Creed’s With Arms Wide Open. The result was hilarious, and a wonderful learning experience. I can’t wait to do this in future classes.

I know I don’t update this personal blog enough, but I’m making it a New Year’s resolution of mine to update at least once a week from now on. For the most part, you can find me writing on Geekadelphia (we just celebrated our 3 year anniversary, thanks to our friends at Hewlett Packard), on Uwishunu, and Tweeting. I’m also hard at work on a new book, a travel narrative with my good friend (and recently budding stand up comedian) Glen.

The semester is wrapping up quickly, and it’s been a successful one, both in the classroom and out. My two courses at MC3 and Peirce were fantastic, and I spoke at Long Island University last month. I only have one more class at MC3 and Peirce College left. I genuinely feel like I learn so much with every new class, and I’ve been blessed with an administration that welcomes my creativity, and students who respond quite well to it. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to such a wonderful group of kids, but I’m already looking forward to next semester.

What the ****!? Thanks Google.

Go ahead, hop over to Google and start typing in “liberal arts doctorate…” and see what happens. Jerks.

Now that I’ve almost been out of school for a year, and teaching just as long, I think I’m finally ready to start applying for PhD programs. Specifically, doctorate programs in Liberal Arts. English, literature, liberal arts in general, etc.

It’s an exciting time, and lots of schools here in Philadelphia have the sort of programs I’m looking for.

2010 should be a great year.