December 15, 2008

Beef stick?

I always feel rather emotional when a class that I'm teaching ends. I tend to get rather attached to the students and to the particular dynamics of a given group and am sorry to see them go. I've had the pleasure of having several of them get in touch with me after the class ended to say hello, either through MySpace, Facebook, email or just stopping by another class I was teaching. I am particularly sad to see this semester's statistics class end.

There are several extraordinarily outgoing students in the class, and I have a lot of fun joking around with them. They're also incredibly sweet.

The most recent example of this came last Monday. I wasn't feeling very well at the beginning of class. An observant student asked me if I felt okay. I mentioned that I hadn't had the chance to eat yet that day, and probably that's why I wasn't feeling so hot. He immediately reached into his bag, grabbed a Slim Jim, held it toward me, and said, "Beef stick? It's been in my bag for a couple of months, but these things last forever." Another student reached into his bag and pulled out chocolate. I laughed and thanked them and told them I was fine, that they didn't need to offer their food. At the beginning of Wednesday's class, one student brought an apple, another brought candy, and another brought Christmas cookies. I was incredibly touched (but also felt really mortified).

Maybe it was dumb of me not to go into teaching full-time. I don't really know anymore.

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