It was seven years ago today that I became a professor at the University of Minnesota.
And it was seven years minus one week ago that I walked out of my car after teaching my first class and thought "I'm the professor? Oh no, they're all doomed." Then I broke out laughing.
My first year as a professor--or maybe just my first semester as a professor--I was fascinated by it. I honestly never thought I would finish college, much less graduate school, much less get a job, much less get a job and stay in it for as long as I have. When I walk out to my car today, I'm going to try to remember how I felt walking to fourth street ramp that first day. I was utterly fascinated. Elated. Dumbfounded.
I'm going to try to remember that, because I'm starting to get to be as jaded and bitter as people who I used to resent for being so jaded and bitter. I'm going to try to remember all of the happy moments in my career: that first day, getting my dissertation published, getting my first internal grant, and getting my first external grant. I'm going to try to remember the phrase that my mom had framed in the kitchen, Illegitimi non carborundum, a mock-Latin (and mock-grammatical, for that matter) expression that means more to me today than when I first learned its meaning, 30+ years ago. And yes, when my mom told me the meaning, she used the "b" word. Back then it was a scandal. These days, it's considered good clean language.
Posted by munso005 at August 27, 2007 04:32 PM