I would be completely fibbing if I said I didn't feel excited at the start of the new academic year - I always do, and it helps when one's campus is looking at its best. It's flat out, of course - today involved running a session for new and old TAs - and the people teaching with TAs - that I hadn't entirely comprehended that (as the person teaching the Practicum for new TAs) I was running. But - hey, after all these years, I can invent almost anything on the spot.
All these years! - this is my 43rd in a full time university teaching position, and that's not counting the teaching I did (with no Practicum, and, in those days, not even books on the topic) as a grad student. That seems like a long time - and it's even more shocking to think how one was thrown into the deep end very young. I was only three and a half years out from being an undergrad, no PhD in sight, and I'd spent a lot of those years in archives in Italy or London or Washington DC, or working for the Labour Party, or in bars - the last two of which, of course, prepare one quite well for extemporaneous seminars.
I did, of course, buy a new notebook for the class. I can't imagine that I'll ever forego that ritualistic pleasure, even if we do have computers, these days ...
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