First Day of the Semester

I dismissed a class almost ten minutes early today. I was looking at the wrong schedule. They came back puzzled and chatty.

First days of anything ... I'm not a fan. I have to constantly talk myself down and say things like, "you've done a lot of first things, and you've gotten used to them! Remember the obstacle course at boot camp at age eleven? Remember opening McDonald's at 4am in July? You'll get used to this."

The moment I realize what I'm doing here, teaching and advising, I am liable to hit some strange Freak Out button (this button is visible only after 7pm). In essence, it's not so hard: plan some reading and writing, give a vocabulary test occasionally, hang out with teenagers from different countries. Really, it's wonderful in a basic way. But as soon as I begin to think about the philosophy and the agenda and the goals and the essential questions that have to back up every single thing I say... Well, I say, higher education has only complicated things.