Yesterday

Yesterday was the first day of the spring semester. I met all three of my new advanced writing classes, one of which is loaded down with students from last semester's all-engineer composition class. They're all boys--darling, darling boys who constantly grumbled about writing but liked me and the way I organized class enough to come back for more torture.

When I stepped off the elevator yesterday they were lounging in the lobby area, spreading themselves over couches and chairs.

It was wonderful to see them. I felt like it was one of those important dramatic moments in a musical--a moment when music would swell up from the pit, heavy on the trumpets and tubas.

"Helloooo, boys," I said.

They all broke into smile. Big goofy boy smiles. "Helloooo, Jess," they said. Then they all started talking at once. They talked about their other classes and teachers, about the hot girl they were going to miss from last year's class, about their girlfriends, about how they hate World Civ and Chemistry and Calculus.

I wanted to put them in my pocket and carry them around for the rest of the day, so I could pull them out at random and make them amuse me. They made me feel like this is going to be a pretty badass semester. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.