Smiley Friday

Late on Friday afternoon at the end of a complicated week, I walked into a room in the science building feeling tired, grumpy, and entirely out of energy, but within minutes I was laughing and by the end of the hour I felt refreshed. The room was full of exhausted professors eating finger foods, drinking wine, and sharing stories, gathered to listen as two of our colleagues presented the results of their sabbatical research projects. I don't know much about scanning tunneling microscopes or microbial films on reefs, but my colleagues took such joy in explaining their work that the joy seeped into every corner of the room and put a spring in our steps as we left the building. 

But that's not the only reason I'm smiling this Friday. In no particular order:

At the student creative writing event yesterday, three of my Nature Writing students read short essays they'd written for my class. Beautiful writing read beautifully--they made me very proud. 

Earlier in the day--at 6:30 a.m., when it was still dark out and I hadn't yet ingested my morning quota of caffeine--I arrived at our first-year student registration breakfast to find a host of students eager to press the big blue "Register Now" button promptly at 7, plus faculty from various disciplines helping them troubleshoot scheduling problems. At least half of the students present were first-year football players, whose coach had insisted that they walk over to the registration breakfast right after early-morning weightlifting. Best of all, the coach came along with them. It's refreshing to see a brand-new coach impressing on students the importance of academics. 

One of my first-year seminar students got the rest of the class laughing so hard this morning that we all felt like one big happy family. Sometimes one student can be a catalyst in a classroom, making good things happen just by being there. I'm going to miss this dude next semester.

I had to run an errand to a bleak strip mall in the middle of the day but I stopped along the way to look at the Ohio River, where the light was gorgeous during the calm before an ugly storm. Calm water, lovely light, refreshing breeze--just before the sky fell.

And a colleague reminded me this evening that the sky is always going to be falling, but it's good sometimes to focus instead on the lovely light.