first day of school thoughts

…which also, in part, apply to the first day of church in a new ward.  

•  everyone is dressed in their very best. the first day of school was always one of my favorite days because i got to show off all my new back-to-school clothes. i can probably recall, down to the accessories, several of my first day of school outfits from various school years through the ages. you have to wear your best, because you never know if the person sitting next to you in PDBio, or Sunday School for that matter, will end up becoming a really great friend…or maybe more. 

here i am this year. happy first day of school!

• i’m still feeling somewhat removed from campus life. i thought i already had my last days at byu, but now i’m back again. i was in limbo before, straddling the line between student and professor, but now it’s even weirder.

• i have one class this semester—the second half of new testament—and i purposely scheduled it at 9:00am so i will wake up at a reasonable hour and get things done. yesterday i hiked up to the jsb and walked into one of the stuffiest spaces i’ve ever inhabited. at first i thought it was just the crush of bodies on the first day of school, a bunch of sweaty college kids rushing around trying to figure out what is going on, but then my classroom, which had far fewer people, was a sauna. apparently, the air conditioning was busted on the first floor. needless to say, it was hard to pay attention in class in such a feverish state. hopefully tomorrow everything will be made right once again.

• i really am glad to be teaching again. i might not love everything about writing 150 as a course, but i love meeting new students every semester and getting to know them. i realized during training this year that it really will be awesome one day to have my own classroom, maybe even, dare i say it, a literature classroom, where can have my own assignments and read stuff i picked out. but, in the meantime, writing 150 is a pretty good gig, and i’m excited for the new semester. my students seem responsive. i mean, they laughed at most of my jokes, which is a good sign.