During my first day teaching on Wednesday, I was surprised that I wasn't more palpably nervous when speaking in front of a classroom. I guess nervousness doesn't manifest itself in the usual ways when you're "in the zone." One thing I noticed is that I kept drawing blanks on stuff that would normally roll off my tongue effortlessly. (I even had to check the article in front of me because I blanked out on Ambassador Wilson's first name. Joseph.)

The worst moment came when I tried to use the following as an example of a poorly constructed passive sentence: "It is known that Jemaah Islamiya is Al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia." The problem was, after I began the sentence, I completely forgot the name Jemaah Islamiya. Like it was always there, and suddenly it ws gone. So I hemmed and hawed and ended up saying "Islam Jambalaya" instead.

Don't worry, I acknowledged that it wasn't the real name (nobody else knew either) and I'm about to issue an email correction to the class.