September days

Ah, glorious September, favorite month of the year. The time when the land and trees shirk the green and dress up with orange, russet, gold, and burgundy. Over dinner last night, I noticed the orange crowns of several trees along Plymouth Road and thought, fall already!

And who could ignore the energy of the new school year? I was driving through central campus yesterday when I spotted a Fox News van. A reporter and carema crew were interviewing grinning students outside Angell Hall.

This year, U of M will welcome the largest cohort of incoming freshman ever. It's the largest in the school's history simply because the admissions office miscalculated and let in more people than they had expected. They didn't know this till May, which left many departments scrambling to hire more instructors for first-year classes. Several of my seniors in the MFA program who'd recently graduated and failed to obtain lectureships were hired over the summer (a mere month and a half ago) to teach for at least a semseter this year.

I doubt I'll become a lecturer next year so this may be the last time I experience a September like this. I've lived through six of these now, one of them in Florence, and I can't say I won't miss these days. After a long summer break, school is a new adventure. And in between classes - driving. There's something so thrilling about driving down long roads with swiftly moving clouds above and a small plane trailing a plume of smoke through the sky. It also helps when you've got good music playing.

I completed my 50 pages tonight. I even got it up to 51. Now I can concentrate on teaching and writing short stories, and gearing up for a novella.

Tomorrow evening, we meet the new first-years. This year has a pretty international crowd - a Jesuit priest from Nigeria, a Philippino, a Dane... . I won't be the only alien anymore!

Posted by Monoceros at September 6, 2004 12:08 AM