I awakened late on Friday morning with an odd
sense of unease.
Looking at the clock, it read 9:15…a quarter
past noon on the East Coast. Then, the
realization came: The new President had been sworn in a few minutes earlier.
In a time of uncertainty, one should count
one’s blessings. The new semester starts tomorrow. Rather than dwell on things such as the low
enrollment in a particular section or the unfamiliarity of the new course I’ve
been assigned to teach, I can look back on a fall term that wasn’t half bad.
Oh, I complained enough at the time,
commiserating with colleagues as weary as I.
My 9:30 section lacked enthusiasm, while attendance lagged in my
12:30. I felt in October the way I
usually felt in March. Stuff like that.
On the other hand, the semester lacked a lot
of the usual irritants. Not a single
student complained about their final grade.
Not one. That by itself borders
on a miracle. Good things happened, too:
I had an article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal (my
first!). I slept well for the most part,
and the vague sense of malaise I’ve felt for the past year and a half has
lifted somewhat.
I can’t say I’m fully charged for the spring
term, but there is hope nonetheless. Let’s
face the days ahead with a similar sense of hopefulness.
