Last Day

Today is the last day before the start of the new semester. I love this day. Stacks of syllabi are in neat rows on my desk, calmly waiting, with the promise of a perfect semester wafting off of them like the fumes from old mimeographed copies.

They hold the possibility of a perfect semester, of the perfectly designed assignment, of the perfect learning environment.

Tomorrow, or the day after that, the syllabi will be stuffed in backpacks, creased and forgotten. At the end of the semester students will bewail their lack of knowledge of deadlines and guidelines, having long forgotten these few pages and their hope for a new leaf being turned in the pursuit of academic excellence. Students will become more than a name on a sheet, a photo on a printout, a head to count. There will be irritations and frustrations; dropped classes, dropped books, dropped balls; reluctance, refusal, and remonstration.

But today, there is still the possibility of perfection.

Today, it's just me and my syllabi.

Tomorrow, the real world begins again.