The Art Teacher
Today (yesterday, if you want to get technical about it), Christian, Cosette, and I visited Lionel Betsch, one of our high school teachers. During my junior and senior years, I had AP U.S. History, Literature at the Movies, and AP Art History with him. He was an incredibly influential figure for me in those two years and in the years since. Without teachers like him, who truly challenged me, I probably would have been incredibly apathetic about putting any effort into school. Until those last two years of high school, I could do really well in most of my classes without much effort. His classes, and others I took in those two years, changed that for me and made me develop a real work ethic. I also owe him for being the first to get me truly interested in art history, which I am now majoring in. If his class hadn’t been so challenging and enjoyable, I may not have taken any art history in college. He was hands down one of my favorite teachers, not just in high school but in general, and it is still fun to go visit and catch up with him occasionally. My friends and I spent so much time in his classroom before and after school and even during lunch because he was so fun to talk to (and didn’t mind a good-natured ribbing). Some of the best memories I have from high school come from the time I spent both learning from him and hanging out with friends in his classroom. Before we left, he asked us each to write a completely modest quote about how much his art history class changed our lives so that his new AP Art History class can read them tomorrow. Here was the result:
After I got back home, I stayed in for awhile while my parents took Val (our cat, see January 2/3) to the vet; unfortunately he had to stay at least for tonight, and hopefully will be doing better enough to come home tomorrow. Not quite sure what’s wrong with him yet but hopefully it’s just a bug. After they got back, I met up with Laura, Kevin, and Shane for dinner at Dion’s and then went back to Laura and Shane’s house (where Andrew, Daniel, and Adrianne met up with us) to watch “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” We also wound up playing CatchPhrase for awhile, and after most people had left I stayed to hang out with Kevin and Shane for awhile longer. This whole not coming home until 3:00 in the morning thing really doesn’t help with keeping these blog posts on track…
(Title: Rufus Wainwright)
