Conferencing, and why do you teach writing?

I had conferences with my 105 students this week on Thursday and Friday. We discussed their drafts-in-progress about the novel _The Kite Runner_. Inevitably, though, we talked about other topics even though the bulk of the discussion focused on their drafts: developing their claims, evidence paragraphs, sentences, etc. Here are the top "around the edges of the writing conference" topics that came up this week:.

--about the fact one student had not done laundry in three weeks. I admitted that I hadn't done laundry in about 10 days--so watch out for some weird outfits.
--about eating habits: One of my students brought his breakfast to our conference: Gatorade and chips. I must admit, I was envious. It looked pretty good to me, and I had just come from the gym!
--about the fact my grandmother went to Occidental College--don't ask me how it came up. I'm sure the student who heard that factoid was not even faintly impressed. I forgot to mention that my grandmother dropped out her sophomore year to get married. Maybe I can bring that up at the next conference.
--about a student going home to visit family (this student was radiant)! I want to go home, too!
--about another student's athletic travel schedule and what it was like to juggle being a student-athlete these first few weeks.
--about my 105 class last fall. Two of my former 105 students rushed into my office while I was talking to a current 105 student and introduced themselves to the current student and shook his hand. They proceeded to take over the conference I was having with my current student, and we began reminiscing about last fall's class and the lives of the past 105 students. The current student looked on with amusement, or at least I hope it was amusement. Interesting situation....the past meets the present.

There are more stories, but I'm running out of energy here...here's the finale.

A student was talking with me about a teacher in high school who didn't like to teach writing. I remarked that it's hard to teach writing and that many people don't like to do it because they find it time-consuming and difficult (the "Overwork" theme from all the 601 readings). "Why do you do it?" the student shot back. It was one of the those questions that I think I always have an answer to, but it got me for a few seconds. I said something lame about how much I love language (true), reading, and writing (all true), but I also said that I thought I was good at it. The student nodded. At least I wasn't contradicted about that last statement --yet......

Anyway....