Keb' Mo' is by my side

This coming academic year is my last before I…I…re…tire, which is a weird word to use when I’ve never quite accepted that I, too, would one day get old and stop with regular jobs and stuff.

I’m playing Keb’ Mo’ loud because the campus is mostly empty, save for the people who actually keep things going, the maintenance and facilities people and the admins who know where all the bodies are buried. It’s actually pretty noisy because someone is dropping furniture and they keep apologizing for the noise, as if this is an ivory tower instead of a striving university off I-95. But as we here on campus like to tell ourselves, we can see Yale University from here and our school sits higher on a hill, so up yours, Yalies.

Because this academic year will be filled with “the last time I” situations, I intend to work against getting nostalgic. I fell into this job. Plus, I have always considered myself a journalist who teaches, not the other way around. When I’m introduced and people are told I’m a professor (which still makes me giggle), I get a far different reaction than when they’re told I’m a journalist — until the Trump years, of course. I somehow have managed to be a part of two professions the raping felon can’t abide, but that just tells me I’m doing something right.

Every year about this time, I start to get excited as I load up my office with coffee and snacks and prepare the first week’s lectures and activities. To me, August is like twilight. It’s the possibilities that are exciting. I’ve never had an entirely awful year, though some have been more challenging than others. You just don’t know when you start out.

As always, remind me of this when I’m pulling out my hair in September. For today, I’m planning how to have an awesome year, complete with contingency plans if it all goes south.