burn unit

This morning, as I began to take attendance for my 8:00 AM section, a security guard knocked on the door of my classroom on the basement of 25 West 4th Street and told us to evacuate the building, which was, we learned, on fire. This was news to me, there having been no alarm or any other indication that there was a rather large electrical fire in our immediate vicinity, which, as we exited the building quickly, started releasing massive clouds of smoke onto west 4th street. After a few minutes of indecision, and as it became clear that there would be no immediate resolution to the fire, i elected, rather than to immediately cancel class, to try to conduct my section outside on the granite plaza in front of the business school. It was too loud, though, and there was a building on fire behind us, which was really distracting, for some reason. Still, in the forty or so minutes before i let them go, we had a halfway decent conversation about Vijay Prashad's "Crafting Solidarities." This is a testament, I think, to how cool and engaged my students are this semester. I think I freaked out all the Sternies by talking about Prashad's Marxist praxis though.