"You would be here with her."

A couple of months ago, KC and I topped off already illustrious graduate school careers (I can say what I want on my blog, right?) by presenting at NCTE-AR--an entire weekend filled with professors and graduate students in the world of literacy education who try to, literally, outsmart the other people in attendance. It's intimidating company, but with a few reassurances from Jessie that were something along the lines of: "It'll be fine--you guys are smart, too!" we felt okay about it.

Here we are at the conference:

(Photo credit: Jessie)

For whatever reason (I think it's officially my fault this time), KC and I are presenting again next weekend at the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English spring conference--an entire weekend filled with English teachers trying to, literally, out-teach the other teachers in attendance. The crowd is less intimidating, and maybe it's just that time of year, but something about pulling this presentation together felt a little insurmountable. After Pizza Luce, a cupcake at Cupcake, and some good natured bitching about the school year and students (okay, it's DEFINITELY that time of year), we managed to pull a pretty smart looking presentation together.

To celebrate, we thought we'd brave the throngs of our high school students at the movie theater near school and go see In the Land of Women--a frighteningly cute movie with a frighteningly cute lead.

Sure enough, a student of mine enthusiastically took our tickets as we entered the theater. She was chipper, nice, and managed to not look entirely ridiculous in her red, polo, movie theater worker shirt tucked into her black pleated movie theater worker pants. The best part, though, was when I asked her how she was doing and she replied with:

"I'm doing well."

Well.

She was doing well.

It's pretty nice, actually, to see the students outside of school once in awhile. It does manage to remind you that they're real people that are, in some ways, trying to be more human than inhuman and aren't actively trying to make your life a living hell. And honestly, when they say something smart that you taught them like, "I'm doing WELL" and they actively choose the adverb over the much preferred adjective, you love them a little bit and you love your job a little bit more.

It was a nice moment--nice enough that my English teacher glow wasn't even dimmed by another student of mine who saw us after the movie, took one look at KC and me together on a Saturday night and said, "Oh man, you just WOULD be with her."