First Day

Today was the first day of school. One thing I love about being a teacher is that I get to have the thrill and excitement of the first day of school every year. By the end at Ritsumeikan a new semester didn't even make me flinch, which is one way I knew it was time to leave. If the start of a new school year can't give me goose bumps then I'm in the wrong place.
They were giving out free coffee in the parking lot at UNH to welcome back the commuters. It was good coffee too. And I auspiciously managed to walk all the way to my office with the open coffee cup in the rain alongside the construction work with neither spilling the coffee all over myself nor getting splashed by a passing car. I took it all as a good omen, even though it was rainy and probably in the mid-60s this morning. Definitely one of those days you'd love to burrow back under the covers. Definitely the gloomiest looking first day back to school that I can recall.
I think I was too hyper in class. I'm going to need to calm down a bit and not rush the students. I'm using a textbook that I never would have chosen myself, but it's what they used last year and I don't think it's fair to jump ship mid course. It's forcing me to be creative in my approach, which is good. It's so liberating to not have to worry about marching in step with the rest of a department. I was teaching with minimal academic freedom the past seven years and, while it's definitely important to know how to follow a curriculum, I'm at the point where I'd rather make my own. The pay sucks, but I'm very psyched to have the job.