Fresh eyes
I'm back at the university for yet another semester. For whatever reason I'm a lot more appreciative this semester of what I have here. I love my "lab group." I put that in quotations because we're technically a lab group but we're never working on the same thing. It's more like 3 people who are all Dr. Neil Mulligan's students who happen to have offices next door to each other. But really, Jeff and Ilana are great. Jeff got engaged this past summer, Ilana got engaged on Monday (congrats again to Ilana), and I got married this summer. Obviously Neil's students get along well with others it seems. Plus, I like my teaching position. This morning I made the mistake of not taking my water bottle down with me to lecture and after talking my way through 18 slides and an hour worth of material, my throat decided it didn't like that. I dismissed class amongst a small fit of coughing. I got some water. I'm all better now. But people look forward to coming back here. I'm here sometimes when it's really quiet and empty and it's like the rooms expect to hear from people, they expect academia to be happening here. And then in the mornings and afternoons the halls have students in them, and we're chatting about research and classes, and faculty are busily working and it's like that's just the way it's supposed to be. Maybe I've romanticized the Davie Hall experience a bit. I know I have. But I really appreciate what I've got here. And I'm pretty sure that this semester is going to be good.