Katie and John

As I'm slowly but surely winding my way towards the end of my teaching career I find that I'm devoting more blog posts to my favorite students. Really, this should not be too surprising since I mainly write this blog for myself, and as I rapidly close in on 2000 blog posts this does all form a wealth of memories for me to revisit. Here is a picture of two of my all-time favorite students: Katie Lawrence and John Amigo. Katie was in my class during her first semester at Champlain, so I was clearly able to see her progression over a college career. They both took my COR 220 Aesthetic Expression course their sophomore year that featured the trip to Thanksgiving break trip to Spain and Portugal. And then John later took my junior level class on Islam. It's hard to believe but they both graduated this year, and I'll definitely miss them (that is not hard to believe). This past year they both went out of their way to schedule occasional meetings off-campus to grab a cup of coffee and talk about life, which is something that upperclassmen tend to do as it suddenly dawns on them that they're going to be leaving the nest. They were both film majors and I ended up appearing in (and doubtless ruining) student films, which is where I snapped this picture.

I chose this picture because a) they both look so professional, b) it was colder than hell that day, which seems to always be a prerequisite for every one of Katie's films, and c) my "performance", actually just a crowd scene, ended up on the cutting room floor, which seemed like a fitting metaphor for my role as a teacher.