Sick Little Monkey

I don’t feel so good today; apparently, too much drinkee yesterday. But it’s odd, I wasn’t even that inebriated when I went to bed. I guess this is what happens when you start in on the beer at 3:00 in the afternoon and go steadily until about 7:00. Combine that with half a century of minor to not-so-minor abuses to body and soul and this is what you get: a kind of haziness combined with dyspepsia and a general sense of lassitude and malaise.

Too bad I have to teach two classes of high school students philosophy this afternoon; well, at least I’ll feel no worse than they do, probably.

Chances are, none of the students will be hungover; I don’t recall ever going to high school nursing what the French call “guelle de bois,” or “wood head,” although there was at least one time in 9th grade where I dropped half a hit of LSD before going to biology class. And in 11th grade, I’m sure there were at least half a dozen times I showed up for History class after smoking pot in the parking lot of WQED television station next door. (We used to huddle under the wheels of this sixteen-wheeler parked there.)

So, I guess I have practice at today’s experience; but just as certainly, the reason I got myself into this state today was some sort of adolescent rejection of responsibility; I knew I had to be a good boy today so I was a bad one yesterday. Or something like that. Maybe I was just bored.

At least I’ve got today’s curriculum planned; we’ll do some introduction to philosophy stuff, a prisoner’s dilemma game, and an activity to explore the conception of justice as articulated by John Rawls.

Then, I’ll present them with a case study in moral reasoning, give them some tools to approach it, and let them go groups.

Afterwards I can come home and crack a cold one.