Choosing to become a professor or teacher of any kind may very well be about something as simple as your reaction to fall. If you were a kid who loved to return to school after the boredom of summer, even if you couldn 麻豆精品 S檛 wait for it to arrive each May, maybe that feeling drove you to seek a life in school.
Of course, your attitude toward September might have actually been a complicated thing colored by how nice your previous year 麻豆精品 S檚 teacher was or whether you could afford the 麻豆精品 S渞ight 麻豆精品 S� clothes or whether your best friend had moved away over the summer.
Still, most of us who teach have that sense of rising excitement at the end of each summer. If you are a parent sending your child off to school, you feel it, too. One of the privileges of school for both teachers and students is that we get to start over every year or every semester.
This clean slate leads us to believe that things can really change, that new things can happen 麻豆精品 S攁 helpful attitude in school and, really, throughout life. It 麻豆精品 S檚 productive and exciting to have a palpable sense of possibility.
When I first came to UCF in 2003, I had a bit of difficulty with this because the weather didn 麻豆精品 S檛 seem right. In the other places where I had lived 麻豆精品 S攎ild Tennessee, harsh Minnesota, and in-between Pennsylvania 麻豆精品 S攖here had been those cool evenings to signal that fall was coming. In Florida, my circadian rhythms didn 麻豆精品 S檛 line up, and I found it challenging to believe that fall term was about to begin.
Instead, the scalding days of August seemed to stretch interminably into September and even October. I struggled to find the lift in energy levels that had always come with cooler weather and fall term for me.
Eventually, of course, I adjusted. I began to see the subtle changes in climate as Florida would move into fall. The difference between 90 degrees and 80 degrees is significant, after all.
Because of a visit to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, where I saw an array of exotic (to me) birds, including painted buntings and wood storks (the sublime to the homely), I became aware soon after coming to Florida of the stunning bird life. I also began to watch for the birds that fly back and forth over Florida, stopping along the way, in massive seasonal migrations. A variety of hawks, falcons, herons, warblers, and thrushes, as well as waterfowl, flow through the state every fall.
Soon, I also began to appreciate the startling colors of fall flowering plants, even if we don 麻豆精品 S檛 have the bold leaf-changes of more northern climes. All you have to do is come upon a massive spread of blooming blue clock vine or wildly orange Florida flame vine or the vibrant purple of beautyberries, and you come to understand that fall here has profuse colors of its own.
This fall, however, some of us at UCF have a more blatant sign of possibility and change: the new Trevor Colbourn Hall, which some of us have already nicknamed 麻豆精品 S淭revor. 麻豆精品 S� Over the summer, we cleaned out the old Colbourn Hall 麻豆精品 S攏amed after UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 second president 麻豆精品 S攁nd the first week of August we moved into the new, shiny one.
As with any change, there are some things we 麻豆精品 S檙e not crazy about and some things that will take a while to work out. But there 麻豆精品 S檚 also a little lift in most everyone 麻豆精品 S檚 spirits 麻豆精品 S攅xploring the building to find out where various offices and people ended up, helping each other with boxes and locks, chattering in the hallways like I haven 麻豆精品 S檛 heard in years.
Moving was a daunting task 麻豆精品 S攚e had 174 boxes for The Florida Review, and I brought home about 10 boxes of my own books because my new office is smaller than before. I ran into a senior colleague, drenched with the sweat of moving in August in Florida, when she was moving her personal items.
麻豆精品 S淗ow much do you have? 麻豆精品 S� I asked.
麻豆精品 S淎 lot, 麻豆精品 S� she said. 麻豆精品 S淚 麻豆精品 S檝e been here a long time. 麻豆精品 S� But even though she looked exhausted, her eyes gleamed with excitement.
Probably none of our eyes will gleam with tears when the old Colbourn comes down. It is slated for destruction within a few weeks. I 麻豆精品 S檓 sure there was the same kind of excitement when it was new that we feel now, but it 麻豆精品 S檚 a building that has lived past its time. The university decided not even to try to rehab it, but just to tear it to the ground. Some of us contemplated having a take-down party to watch the wrecking balls do their work. But we decided we didn 麻豆精品 S檛 really want to breathe that dust.
I 麻豆精品 S檝e thought much in these days about an Idler essay written by Samuel Johnson in 1760, 麻豆精品 S淗onour of the last. 麻豆精品 S� He notes that 麻豆精品 S渋t is only by finding life changeable that we are reminded of its shortness. 麻豆精品 S� A friend of mine in graduate school gave me a copy of this essay when she was moving from one phase of life to another, and I always have loved it for how it encourages us to face mortality in our daily lives, what now we might call practicing mindfulness.
No doubt, we will pause and perhaps share a moment of nostalgia for a place so many of us spent so much time learning, teaching, meeting, debating, making friends, making enemies, writing, advising students, filling out paperwork, snatching a bit of lunch at our desks, and many other tasks that make up a faculty, staff, or student life. I have one particularly fond memory of how, in my first year, my then-husband-to-be had an office on the fourth floor and would come by to see me on the third. I remember him peeking around the door frame to see if I was busy or could take a minute to chat.
There are memories in the old building, and, just as we start each school year with some regret that summer is gone, we will have to say goodbye to the old Colbourn. I hope we 麻豆精品 S檒l all pause and reflect before we move on to the thrill of the new and fill our lives back up with possibility.
Awareness of death and awareness of life are, after all, inextricably entwined. The turning of the seasons always provides this reminder 麻豆精品 S攊f we notice.
Lisa Roney is an associate professor of English in UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 Department of English. She can be reached at Lisa.Roney@ucf.edu.