P.S.

I want to be sure to make note of this: As I was getting ready to leave Advisement, I was told I had a phone call. It was a student, to my surprise. He said he had meant to say something when he'd seen me earlier, hadn't, and wanted to be sure to talk to me about some issue. He started to tell me about his math professor, how he'd taken a test more than two weeks before and hadn't gotten the grades back until just now. I was expecting him to ask me if this was something he could lodge a complaint about, or how he could express his unhappiness about that to his professor--but no. He said, "That professor took two and a half weeks to return test grades, and you returned our graded papers in two days. That is evidence of how much you care." If you are reading this, my student, thank you. Truly and sincerely, thank you.

I don't know if students understand how seldom we receive any recognition from them--not so much about the work we do (this is, after all, my job) but about the fact that we care. OK, not all of us, but most of us. We truly, deeply care about our students and their success. It seems that most students don't think of their professors as actual human beings, and insofar as they do think about our motivations, they seem to believe that our only raison d'etre is to torture them. What a bunch of sadists we are--or at best, utterly without feelings of any kind. So to have a student recognize the emotional commitment that goes into the work is manna indeed.

I'm marginally incoherent about this (long day at the end of a long week, and my brains are starting to seize up), but truly, that was a sterling moment, one I will treasure and hold on to, polish with repeated remembering over not only months but probably the rest of my career. And that came on top of a comment overheard in class today. Students were practically bleeding out their ears from the effort they were putting into their revisions, they were working alone as well as checking in with classmates, and calling me over to ask questions--and I overheard a student--I'm not even sure who, just a female voice--say "I love this class." That, when she is being put through a mangle. That's praise, too.

And that's the sweet taste I carry in my mouth as I leave campus this week. I have a bag full of more papers to mark (my poor short story students have been getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop for over a week; it's time now to put my attention into getting work back to them), but the immediate searing pressure is off, and I take home that manna, that nectar of praise. Heavenly days.