10

 And another week down, only five weeks to go. My students were immeasurably dense this week, staggeringly dense, even factoring in that it was the week after spring break they were breath-takingly dense. It would be great to finish out my long career with great, engaged students (to be fair, I do have a few really good kids this semester), but in other ways finishing with under-prepared and unengaged students is making this transition easier. It's frustrating because I'm teaching two sections of my Journey to the West class, which I originally created because I thought learning about Sun Wukong would be of natural interest to the gamer kids and also support their professional interests, and two classes on Fascism, because, well, duh. Sadly, the majority of the students seem pretty disinterested in both topics, the former leaves me sad, the latter leaves me frightened.

Thanks to CFL Hall of Famer Bernie Faloney for the use of his number 10 in the Countdown this week. Faloney was born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and eventually starred at Maryland. In 1953 he led Maryland to a share of the national championship and finished fourth in the Heisman balloting. He was drafted in the first round as the 11th pick by the San Francisco 49ers, but they viewed him as a defensive back and an backup quarterback - and only offered him $9000. Edmonton (at the time the Eskimos) told him he could compete for the starting quarterback job - and they offered him $12,500 (it's so odd to read about these early stories where CFL teams outbid NFL teams for players) - so Faloney headed north. He helped Edmonton win the Grey Cup, but then returned home but then returned home to serve his military duties. After two years, he returned to the CFL, this time signing with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, for whom he became a legend (one of the roads next to the Tim Hortons Field is name after him), leading the Tiger-Cats to two Grey Cup wins.