When I was 9, I copied the Lord’s Prayer out of a Bible at a house of somebody quite fancy, memorized it, and started saying it in secret. My kid learned it at school at the age of five. There’s definite progress here.

It’s cultural appropriation to wear a sari and do yoga but it’s not cultural appropriation to say things like “decolonize the curriculum.” Because pretending that you know something about being a colony is completely cool and not in the least insulting.

I hate every part of wokeism but none as much as the fashionable use of the word ‘decolonize.’ My sister is in graduate school and has been assigned an article on how to ‘decolonize’ business schools. We have personally experienced both being a colony and decolonization but ridiculing our experience is perfectly fine.

We are still doing social distancing, so my classrooms are big. Even with 25-30 students you need a large room if you are to maintain the six-feet space between people. This means I use my teacher’s voice to deliver my lectures (I’m very into the traditional, old-fashioned lectures these days). The teacher’s voice needs good lung capacity, in case you don’t know.

I teach in a transparent facial shield, which helps boom my voice to every corner of the classroom. Fun times! I like to overwhelm. Today, however, I got distracted by some messages before class and forgot to swap the mask for the shield. I marched into class in a mask and thought, OK, what’s the big deal? I can teach one lecture in a mask.

Folks, I barely lasted 3 minutes. Then I started to choke and gasp for air like a last-stage COVID patient. Again, remember, teacher’s voice isn’t like speaking. It’s more like singing in that you need a lot more air. I had to run out of the classroom, tearing the mask off my face and wheezing.

I had gotten checked post-COVID, and my lung function is unaffected, so it’s not that. It’s the bleeding mask. I now understand why the poor priest almost collapsed in church. I’m kind of stunned he lasted as long as he did.

Stupid masks. I’m so glad I refused to teach in them from the get-go.