Fresh Starts

I love January, for all kinds of reasons. In Northern California, it’s just as likely to be sunny and mild in January as it is to be rainy, plus the days are already noticeably longer. And, of course, my birthday is in January.

The other reason? Well, for me, it’s a month that’s been synonymous with starting a new semester for the past seventeen years as I made my way through college and my master’s program and teaching assistantships and then started teaching full-time. Today was the first day of the semester, and I taught three classes before noon–a big jump in productivity after my December/early January slothful lifestyle of reading books and blogs, watching DVDs, and picking kids up at school. I like the balance of downtime and intense work that I have right now. (I’ll try to stick to that attitude when the first batch of papers comes in.)

This semester I have more returning students than ever before, partly because of the way classes were scheduled, but also because several of my students from last semester wanted to continue on with me. It’s rare for me to have the same students twice, since I always teach the required comp courses, not courses majors take. I have to say it’s lovely, as we have a rapport that took months to create and which contributes to the whole class feeling more included from the very beginning. My university is large and sometimes impersonal, so it’s a real treat to get to watch this handful of students as they grow and mature as thinkers and people over the course of a full academic year.