Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

This is my first semester of teaching THREE (count 'em, three) courses, and so far, I have to say it's exhausting, but kind of fun.

The exhaustion part comes from having three separate syllabi and sets of handouts to prepare, and three different attendance lists, and having to keep straight in my own head whether I've told this information to this particular group of students yet, or whether I'm thinking of yesterday's class, instead.

The kind of fun part comes from feeling as though my teaching skills are valued by the university, but even more than that, from the experience of starting to connect with the students and get them talking.

So far, I've had three students drop out of one of my courses, but the other two remain at the maximum allowable enrollment of 24 students each. I'd be just as grateful not to have more than 69 separate papers and sets of essay exams to grade, frankly. Oh, well -- it's nice to be wanted, I guess.

Hope the end of August is treating each of you well, or at least not too badly.