Counting Blessings

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.