Yesterday, my students said to me, "Is your team even in the tournament this year?".  (I may have been regaling them with the Carolina basketball psychodrama all term.)

"Thanks," I replied, scowling at them, "I appreciate your concern." 

They went on, cruelly: "Duke's in first place! What happened to you guys?". 

I looked down at my lesson plan, and felt a violent blush rising up my neck, all the way past my cheeks to my hairline. The whole vivid wave of shame took about twenty seconds to complete its journey.  I couldn't even look up and meet my students' eyes.  I had thought I was at peace with our enfeebled basketball season, I really did.*   I was wrong.

And then we went back to discussing Life is a Dream. Which seemed apt.

¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.

¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,

una sombra, una ficción,

y el mayor bien es pequeño:

que toda la vida es sueño,

y los sueños, sueños son.

*I had even told my Intro to Drama students in a previous class that I had come to terms with it by viewing it as a sort of memento mori: this way goes all earthly glory, Everyman.  Think on't, Faustus.  Fortune's privates we.