I love my laptop, but there’s nothing like opening a fresh notebook, seeing that first pristine sheet of paper, blank and ready for notes.

My notebook, a pen, my laptop, a new textbook and the semester calendar sit in front of me, as I begin lesson plans for the second summer semester. Which begins in less than two weeks.

I have a new password for my UT email and I have printed out my class roster. It has photos, so it’s given me my first look at the students I’ll teach. My new department chair has asked to meet with me as part of his program of interviews with faculty. If chairs did that before, they haven’t included us part-timers before now.

I have my dry erase markers at the ready, and the eraser I had to commandeer because students kept stealing them for the dorms. I miss chalk, though, and the dust that gets all over your clothes…the way the white or yellow strikes look against the black. Dry erase just hasn’t the same cachet.

But still, how quickly everything falls into place!

It’s exciting to have this semester ahead of me, even though it’ll be a hard and fast six weeks.

This IS something I love. How wise of FLH to bring this up.

I am very, very lucky and never take him for granted. And never will.