Lovely

I didn't realize I had comments on my blog and now I've missed someone who needed some information. Crap. Well, let's hope she found it anyway.

I let my second class go early yesterday and had the opportunity to walk across campus when very few people were around. This semester the campus is so crowded that it is sometimes hard to get through the mobs of people or find a parking place. Yesterday was a nice study in the lives of the people on campus.

I left my class a minute or so after my students since I usually have at least one student who wants to talk to me after class. Sometimes they just want to chat, other times they have a question about their work. After finishing up I headed outside to walk to the adjunct office to check my box. I caught up with a group of my students just as we were entering another building; when they turned around to hold the door open and saw me all three of them lit up into huge smiles. I love seeing them smile, even if it is momentary.

I headed through the building to the elevator, which is in a sort of nook off the main hallway. I had noticed two other students going in the same direction but taking a different bridge across the lake. They happened to walk slowly by the elevator nook while I was waiting, not seeing me. I heard a snippet of their conversation about class, how much they liked discussing the material and how much they liked me as a professor.

After checking my mailbox I headed back across campus to my car. As I was passing the library a little girl of about four came running out and started spinning in the breezeway. Two women holding hands came out after her and laughed as she spun and giggled. It was a pretty picture of innocence and it made me feel good to know that those two women felt safe enough to display their love so openly.

As I was passing the building where I teach my classes I saw a young woman sitting on the steps, talking on her phone and crying. It sounded like her boyfriend had just broken up with her and she was trying to understand why. She told the person she was talking to that his family loved her, they had plans for the weekend and she couldn't understand where this sudden break had come from. I wanted to stop and hug her but I knew that would have been unwelcome and inappropriate. I remember how it felt to come to a sudden and unwanted stop in a relationship.

Finally, as I was heading to the parking lot I passed a group of Asian students. One of them was one of my new students and he said hello with a big smile as I passed. It was all so lovely and varied and human.