Hey, it's major. Today's episode is courtesy of the poet Jason Schneiderman.

Don't worry, I'll return to your feeds on June 12th.

I'm Jason Schneiderman, and this is the slowdown.

One of the reasons I became a teacher is that I love semesters, and one of the things I love about

semesters is that they end. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, and it might sound like

I'm saying I just want the whole thing to be over, but the truth is that I love the arc of it.

I love starting with a fresh, faced group of new students. I love guiding them through 16

weeks of exercises, readings, and assignments. I love reading their final papers and submitting

their final grades, and then having some time to myself for other projects before the next semester

starts. Another way to say this is that the semester structures the student teacher relationship.

I think my students get the best version of me, the smartest, most capable, and most expert version

of me, and I get the most open and interested version of them. Sometimes I wonder if we choose

our professions, or at least those of us who get to choose based on the kinds of relationships

we want to have. Doctors and nurses know that they're going to try to help people whose bodies

are failing them. Funeral directors know that they will spend their days with people with the

nature of grief. Firefighters, police officers, lawyers, programmers, architects, astronauts,

politicians, the list goes on. Whenever I think about a profession, I think about the

relationships which structure those professions, and how every kind of work also entails a

specific kind of love. Or if love seems too strong a word, a specific kind of intimacy.

Today's poem is by Sean Singer, who, like me, is a teacher, but at a certain point, he became a

cab driver to support himself. In his poems about driving a cab, he experiences not a

wilting relational arc of guiding students through a semester, but a staccato cord of intense

...