Commencing

Tomorrow is the first day of the spring semester. Students have been trickling back to campus all day. Parking places have gotten harder to come by.  And the bookstore has long lines.

Faculty have spent the day printing, collating, notating, xeroxing.  I can't think of any I've left undone, but then, that was the case earlier this morning before I thought of fourteen things that hadn't been done yet.

I'm lucky to have a safety net this semester -- a co-teacher in one class, a shared syllabus and an assistant in the other.  The only problem with that is that it makes it possible for me not to think everything through ahead of time.  I relax a little bit, knowing that there's someone to pick up my slack.  Two minds are better than one, but not if both of them are hoping that the other one is paying more attention.

I start the day tomorrow manning a welcome booth on the north side of campus.  One would think there would be fewer newbie questions or people needing directions in the spring semester than the fall, but maybe I'm completely off base.  There's surely no better way to take the temperature of the campus than sitting behind a table and gauging the expressions of students with 9 am classes in early January.  I wonder what I'll find.