First Day of Classes

Well, I survived. Abbreviated index finger and all. Today was the first day of Fall Semester 2004 at Adrian College.

When I was a child, I was always the kid who wanted to go back to school about the first of August. By that time I was tired of summer, tired of too much unstructured free time, tired of goofing off or doing nothing. If we had taken a family vacation, it was long over. I wanted to be back in school. I wanted to be learning new stuff. I missed the classroom.

I guess it is a good thing I have the job I do. I tell people that college professors are the one percent of the one percent of the population that enjoyed school so much that we wanted to make it our careers. I love the campus environment. All campuses (campi?), not just the one I am on. The one I am one got a big boost in appeal this summer with the opening of our new student center. I am sitting in it right now, sipping coffee and blogging off the wireless connection.

Being on the other side of the lectern has its' issues though. I get frustrated pretty quickly with campus politics and some of my colleagues, although at the same time recognizing that it is just as likely for me to be part of the problem.

The start of the Fall Semester always has its share of problems, especially technologically speaking. When hundreds of students bring their PC's back on campus after a summer of P2P sharing, web surfing, AIM, and e-mail, there are always a few nasty little viruses lurking, ready to have their way with the campus net. Our IT guys are awesome, but overworked, and it seems there is always some small odd way that we get hit. The faculty bear their part of the blame as well. A lot of our faculty are gone all summer, never turning on their computers for virus or OS updates. Needless to say, the net has the flu.

Otherwise, it has been a busy, full, tiring, awesome, funny, wierd, goofy, annoying, sweet, sublime day. The students are rarely in better humor as they are after a summer full of whatever it is they do to relax and recharge.

My habit in the fall is to be up before dawn, showered, shaved, fed, with a copy of the Detroit Free Press under my arm on the way in to the office before 7AM. It is blissfully quiet up in my office at that time, and I usually have at least an hour and a half before I even hear footsteps coming down the hall. I generally get more work done in that period than I do the rest of the day between classes.

I am teaching two introductory Chemistry courses this semester (majors and "Chemistry for Poets", which is my design and one of my favorites), as well as a section of the college's new First Year Seminar. So, overall I have almost ninety students, most of whom I do not know. I only have one course for majors, so I don't have a whole lot of familiar faces in the classroom, but they do end up in my office, if only for the free Skittles that come out of the gumball machine that stands by the corner of my desk.

So...it is approaching 9PM, and I am yawning and rubbing my eyes like a five year old who is up past his bedtime. I will finish this post, get the dogs out for another walk, and hit the pillow by 10, with about thirty seconds between lights out and me out, like a light.

A good day. I love my job. Life is pretty damn good.