The Ha-San Lee Center for Faculty Development

Now, you may be asking yourself: where is Buckwalter right now? And what is he doing? And how must he have pimped the system to have gotten himself there? Never fear; I have the answers you seek.

This morning, I am coming to you from deep in the heart of the Ha-San Lee Center for Faculty Development on the third floor of the Lied Library on the campus of UNLV. To get in here, I have had my picture taken, shown ID twice, and signed the sign-in form. And with all this security, I find myself wondering if I really belong in this place. Naturally, I do.

This is the Graduate Reading Room. It's just like the rest of the library, only the furniture is a little bit nicer, the computers are a little bit faster, and if you don't have a "G" on your RebelCard identifying you as a graduate student, they don't let you in. For real. It's like an old-school gentleman's club, only you don't have to be gentle or a man to get in. You just can't be one of those lazy, good-for-nothing undergrads. They have to use the rest of the library.

My parents told me a while back that being a graduate student at a large university was a lot like being on the faculty there. At St. Thomas, I never felt that vibe, but here at UNLV, I can't avoid it. It's weird: secretaries treat you differently, the administration nods knowingly, and, of course, I can use the same place the Faculty uses to Develop itself. All I need to do is memorize and use this simple phrase: "I'm a graduate student."

Being a student here is a very fine thing indeed.

A True Story

One day, Chuck Norris' girlfriend asked him, "Chuck, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" And Chuck Norris flew into a rage, grabbing his girlfriend by the throat and ripping out her skull. He held it proudly aloft, and bellowed, "Don't fuck with Chuck!"

Exactly two years and five months later, Chuck Norris suddenly realized the humor in his triumphal caveat, and laughed so long and so hard that everyone within a three mile radius of his mirth went deaf.

This actually happened.

Grenadilla, Thy Bore Hast Charmed Me

Opportunism gets a bad rap, I think. Why shouldn't people take advantage of, you know, opportunities when they arrive? Check it out: the music store where I work also does a vast amount of business hosting private lessons for local street-urchins. For various arcane and mystical reasons, the Morphine-Addicted Owner of the store does not, as a rule, allow those of us who work as clerks at the counter to teach. But rules tend to bend when the store's sole saxophone-clarinet-flute teacher up and disappears one day, leaving his entire studio completely without an instructor. Enter Buckwalter and his plucky opportunism: "Morphine-Addicted Owner? Might I be considered to fill this unfortunate vacancy?"

The Morphine-Addicted Owner pulls the morphine lollipop* out of his mouth and says, "Sounds good to me." So the studio was carved up between myself and another opportunistic counter-worker, and that was that. She took the flute students and I took the clarinets and the saxophones.

Fine. No problem. Perfect. Money, I command you to roll in.

It took about twenty minutes for me to remember that even though I assured both the Morphine-Addicted Owner and the Diminutive Education Director that I could indeed both teach and play clarinet, I've never taught it, and only took a completely failed stab at learning it one summer when I was sixteen. (One always says "yes" in interviews when asked skills questions... Can you shoot out the eye of a foreign leader with an open-sight rifle at one thousand yards? Yes, I can. And I have. Many times.) Grimly, I recalled the sounds made by beginning clarinetists that cause birds to migrate early.

Gulp.

So, long story short, I've been practicing my ass off trying to learn the fine art of the clarinet well enough to help out my new students. So far, I haven't needed to do anything more than put the clarinet together and arrogantly display it on the sax stand in my studio. I've decided that I have fourteen days (or so) to get good enough that I can both play along with and demonstrate for the students. It seems like a reasonable goal right now, and things have gotten better over the past week, but the cat still runs for cover when she hears me unsnapping the latches on the case. The other teachers at the store see me with my clarinet and say things like "oh, good; if I have any clarinet questions, I can just ask you," which makes me smile and nod. I haven't played in the store yet, and I can't really ask any of the teachers there for suggestions because they all think that I know what I'm doing. And, of course, I do know what I'm doing. Sort of.

Mostly.



*I'm not joking about the morphine lollipop. They're green, and he sucks on them all the time. Seriously.