Thinking about the calendar.

This week was the first week of the semester for me at work. I updated my syllabus and prepared a first-day exercise and a handout on hermeneutics and went to work. The first day is always fun: you can look through the syllabus, picture where you'll be in the spring, and (if you're the student) evaluate whether you want to stick with the class or not. There is a certain satisfaction for the teacher, too, to be able to tell a big group of people that they'll need to be somewhere specific on May 1st in order to take the final exam. There's a great novel by Ferrol Sams called "The Whisper of the River" in which the (very young) hero goes off to college and has all sorts of interesting and profound and profane adventures. He meditates at a certain point on one of his syllabi, thinking to himself that it would be impossible to get behind in this man's class: it's that well-organized and laid out. I'd quote the passage but am having trouble locating the book, which of course just makes me want to read it, and I'll spend a week hunting for it before it turns up and then I'll get to settle in with it for a few nights of reading. I'm not confident that my students are half as excited, or that they'll find it impossible to fall behind, but I have high hopes. And the rest of the spring is falling into place nicely: a couple of conferences, a few deadlines which seem managable, the fun of Easter (for which I also get to cancel class one week, having been informed too late that my class falls within the Easter Break period. Alas, I will have to spread Luther and Calvin out a bit.) Anyway, there's something energizing and motivating about paying attention to the year that's unfolding, and marking the dates, and planning ahead, and reading good novels on the couch while the wind blows outside.

Editing to add that I *found* the book, although not "Bultmann: Retrospect and Prospect" which the library needs back. The passage I was thinking of reads, "There was something about sitting in a sunny classroom in September and looking at what one would be doing all through the winter and on into March that brought to Porter's attention the beauty of a businesslike approach to education. There was no way one could get behind in this man's class. Of course, one would be six months older, but one should be filled with a wealth of information."