Orientation: Another Step to Becoming a College Profesor

This is basic -- just a straightforward sharing of another big step in me turning into this person who is a college teacher...

I went to my orientation today for fall semester.  The university where I will be teaching (the same one I just graduated from in May) has an orientation each year for their adjuncts, with information sessions on various useful topics.  Some of the adjuncts in there have taught for many years (one as long as 30 years!!). I have never felt anything before like what I felt today, sitting in there with them... my colleagues.  I love the sense of community there. I felt humbled in the best ways, hearing about the work of my wise and experienced fellow part-time professors there. I am going to do my best to learn all that I can about how to teach well.

After the orientation, the department coordinator walked the three of us who were new over to get our faculty IDs and to get our office keys.  He showed me my office and had me try my key to be sure it worked properly, so I saw the office I will be sharing with a few other part-time professors.  Outside the door, I saw my name on a printed sign, along with the other three.  "Professor Lucy S...."  I can't help it - all of these things thrill me.  It feels surreal,   I am so deeply glad and thankful to be able to do this.

I feel like I have been waiting my whole adult life for this, through the childhoods of my kids, always waiting for some stable enough time to continue my education.  It is hard to express  how huge it becomes after so many years, how badly you can yearn for it, and at the same time, begin to see it as only a dream, and sometimes tell yourself that you probably don't want it anyway.  And, finally making it back to school in 2009, and then getting to continue into graduate school because of getting the fellowship has been emotionally overwhelming.  I have never just adjusted to these profound changes.  I've never been able to become used to them or jaded.  And now, I am becoming a college professor.  I tell my kids, my extended family, my friends, and they laugh and share my joy about this. The transformation continues to unfold.

After I left the university, I met my son Kevin at the local worker-owned cafe, where we ate and then stayed talking for over four hours.  Then I drove back home with my other son Justin, who had taken the bus that way to meet his friend, and we were talking and laughing and listening to Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Dorothy Moore's old song, "Misty Blue." Now I am home with the doors and windows open, simply glad to be alive. Eloquence completely eludes me.  I am tired and I am happy.