And Another Semester Gone

Yes, the papers are graded and the grades are submitted and another semester is fading into the mists.  I can't believe that I've been doing this for over thirty years.  I gave my first lecture in the fall of 1982 when I was twenty-two, and then taught my first self-contained class in the summer of 1984 at the tender age of twenty-four. The end of every semester is a bit of a melancholy time for me.  I don't know whether it's the realization that I'm another semester closer to death, or maybe I do actually like these little knuckleheads and might theoretically miss them.

My friend and colleague John Stroup snapped this picture of me from his office window.  I'm stopping to give a couple of my students a hard time about something.  I don't normally dress so shabbily; it was the chili cook-off and since I was cooking Cincinnati chili I had to wear my ancient Reds sweatshirt.

The other day one of my colleagues was making a point about me stopping one of my students on campus and, in a good natured way, abusing them (the point being that my students know I care about them if I take time out of my busy schedule to heap foul scorn on them).  She paused and said, smiling, I guess I need to be more specific.