Three Snapshots of a Day That Just Was - Celebrating the Last Classes of the Semester (Phew)

Last night of teaching at Fairfield University for the semester and this was the moonrise (full) that followed the sunset. I was on campus all morning, so came home at lunch to run and walk the dog before the last classes could be taught for the semester. Sadly, I had to miss the department's holiday party because the Dean scheduled on a night when several of us teach.

As I looked out my window in preparation of the classes, I saw the moon was huge and the winter scene was sort of beautiful (although this photo doesn't do it justice). I also loved the pink sky as I pulled in - in fact, as I drove back around 4, the sky was almost a red, white and blue. It was simply the kind of lighting that you get only a couple times a year.

It's hard to believe the 14th class of the semester has ended (I missed a week because of a conference). I also couldn't believe that as the students did evaluations and I met with them one by one in the hallway, that the entire 2 hours flew by. I was conferencing in the hallway when a couple came out to say, "We're heading home." I was like, "Oh, okay, are you done?" They replied, "It's time for class to end." I didn't even get to my final Jerry Springer moment for the season. That was the fastest two hours of teaching ever.

It's funny, too, because I began class by acknowledging that teachers like me are one blips of the radar. They will have many and already have had many. Someday, I'll only be a little flashback in their narrative tale (remember that guy who showed us the world's saddest commercial...remember that guy who wrote a script for our class we all had to act out....remember that guy who handed out tissues as some of us read our personal narratives in class).

Just like that. Blink It's over. Just a fragment of one's way of being. A glimpse.

I opened with a writing activity with the graduate students last night - the same one my senior Speech teacher did with us (he was the drama director and an English teacher at the school). It was such a powerful activity for the last day of class when he did it with us. I've been doing it during last classes of writing for my entire career. It is pretty much a 100% hit-hit activity....so much so that the first hour spent with graduate students 100% engaged in their writing. That followed with sharing, too, which led to conversation - no wonder the evening went by so fast.

I tend to be a lucky instructor. I get phenomenal students who sign up for my class and over a semester we bond over a passion of being writers and sharing our lives. It always bothers me when it ends, but it has to. I am a sunset and a moonrise.

Mr. Moonbeam.

One day, they might say, "I had this Professor once who......"

That's all we can ever be.