Sweet things. First cotton candy, then ice cream at the Law School.
One more student presenting one more paper and then it’s over. For most of my students, mine was the last class they’ll ever attend in their lives. One tells me – yours was my first and yours was my last.
Sadly, I’ll likely never see him again.
I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers. I like music, but I don’t listen to the radio much and I don’t follow music trends. Write down a title of a song I should download and listen to. Put your name by it and I’ll associate it with you when you’re long gone into the attorney world.
I pack for home a list of songs scribbled on a yellow sheet of paper.
Evening. We’re out on the terrace – a group of my students and I, having a beer by the water, recalling the highs and lows of it all.
Remember when, in the first semester of law school you took us for a pizza and karaoke?
This graduating class began their tenure here at a time of tumoltuous changes for me. Teaching was a solid, teaching was good. I had 22 anchors in that class. Two and a half years later, I let them go. Off you run now, all of you Katherines and Kates and Aarons and Brandons and Neils, the whole lot of you – off you go.
And now we're in the last hours of the last day of April and there's nothing left but a song and a smile. And that's a good thing. I'm up for both.
Sadly, I’ll likely never see him again.
ReplyDeleteWell, unless by some strange stroke of coincidence his spouse's aunt, hundreds of miles away, finds your blog and tells her niece who then tells your former student, "Hey, by chance did you ever have Nina as a professor in law school? She writes a really great blog!" to which he will reply, "Yes I did. Remember I told you about her when we ate at L'Toile?" And then, in the land of blogs and email, you'll be connected once again, like it or not!
Congratulations on finishing another semester!
I absolutely loved reading this post.
ReplyDeleteI do always enjoy your photo shots, however, it is your words and thoughts that continually draw me here.
You are a true teacher. You give, yet you find that your students give back...Although obviously I've never sat in a class of yours, I believe your students give you so much because you give to them of yourself.
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If I had been a student in a class like yours, I'd probably pick "Moon River" by Monica Mancini. Give it a listen, it's really nice.
Congratulations on a year well done.
Cheers.
I always thought it was a crock that we could never vote for you for teacher of the year.
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