NOSCHOOLNOSCHOOLNOSCHOOL

So, school has been cancelled tomorrow because it's going to be colder than the 9th circle of hell. (Quick: somebody explain that allusion!) Which means you can sleep in and relax, but it also means a sort of weird, anti-climactic closing to our semester. Update: See you Monday. Treat the following as your final weekend blog post. Newer update: See you Tuesday because Monday is no-school-due-to-polar-vortex-day #4. A couple of you have your index poems up--yay!

What we were going to do in class was compose index poems that function as entertaining summaries of the course experience. Here's a tiny sample of how an index poem might look. This is an excerpt from an index poem written by a poet/acquaintance/colleague of mine named Amorak Huey.

Index to Chapter 7: Spring Break, Panama City Beach, 1988

Airbrush tattoos 135
Anna 121, 124, 139, 140-157, 160
       College boyfriend of 122
.........Conversation on the drive down about 120-124
.........Dumping-boyfriend rumors 125
.........Eric and 158-160
.........Optimism and 126-157
Arcade 129
Arrogance 122, 125, 146
.........Making fun of everyone who is not we 122, 129, 133, 141
.........Nicknames, occasionally cruel 123, 139
.........Visibility of, in hindsight 159
Autonomous self, the 120, 140, 145
.........Unrealized expectations for 159
Bartles & James 124, 126-132
.........purchase of (see also Keith from first period; see also fake ID) 124
.........taste of (see also Kool-Aid) 129
Beach 121, 133, 144, 147
Best week ever, anticipation of 120, 122

Notice a couple things about the set-up: alphabetical A-Z (again, I just gave you a snippet), imaginary page numbers are included, the (see also) element to indicate other cross-references, and the blend of obvious and literal with quirky, inside-jokes and humor and the word or phrase building into a line or full sentence by indentation of the following line. It's a lot of fun to write these, actually. Think about all of your silly inside jokes about Bitzer and Orwell and how crazy your teacher is and have some fun with it. I challenge you to write one as your final blog send-off.

Stay warm!