Another Batch of Ducklings

I've got a stack of grading I need to do before my English 101 final at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. I'm pushing the clock with regards to how much time I have left to do it, but I'm still reluctant to get to work. End of the semester grading is the hardest. It's all so... final.

In the semesters that I've been teaching, I can trace a change in me in each. The more I do it, the more confident I get about the content, which means I pay more attention to the individual students. Side effect = I get more invested in them. Then the end of the semester comes along and, whoosh, they're gone. Sure, I'll spot a few next semester wandering around campus, or I may even have a couple of 101 kids again since I'm teaching a couple sections of 102, but most of them are going to vanish. It's bizarre and it makes me just a little bit sad.

Most of them will fall off my map and the little mysteries of each student - like the young man studying accounting who has a homemade tattoo on his hand that reads "la famiglia" - will remain mysteries. The writer in me makes up stories to go with the quirks of these students, but as the instructor, it's not my place to get personal.

So, I get to know them the best I can during the course of the semester, I try to help them the best I can, and then they move on and I never really know what happens to them after my class. My brother reminds me, "You'll have another batch next semester to get attached to," but I'm stalling on grading the last bits, because I get sentimental during this part of the semester.

It seems so cheesy, but there you have it. I actually like most of my students.