The new semester started this week at the University of Houston, where I teach, and yesterday I met my first class, a Master Fiction Workshop. Often, the Master Workshop is the final class that our graduate students take before they do their thesis/dissertation defense, and by this point most of them are mature writers with a draft of their novel or short story collection. This year all the students have novels, so we will also be reading, side by side, published novels that I have assigned them based on their interests and their projects. We will start with Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Hesse's Siddhartha, novels that I love for different reasons, and analyze the way in which the writers have structured chapters. Along with the students, I know I will learn a great deal from this re-examination.
I feel very fortunate to be teaching. Teaching certainly has its challenges, but there is such a sense of renewal to it. Each semester I begin all over again. Each semester I have the opportunity to touch the lives of young writers and learn from them. At the end of the semester, there is a sense of closure as I turn in grades and the students go on to the next stage of their lives. It is a unique relationship. I am very fond of my students. We have (I think!) a lot of fun together as we learn. We are in a great enterprise together, the creation of art, and through it, the examination of humanity and this amazing universe we live in. Yet at the end of the semester I can let them go without a pang--because that's the way it's supposed to be. (But often I'm surprised and delighted by students who come back--maybe years later-- to let me know of their achievements).
I wish I could achieve this equanimity in other areas of my life!
P.S. I'm very interested in how people feel about their jobs, the challenges and satisfactions. Please do write your thoughts about what you do.