when teaching is good

The course I'm teaching this semester on the personal essay has in some ways mirrored what's wonderful about a really good personal essay. Like a great essay, the course has wandered off into really productive territory that I could have neither prescribed or predicted. My obsession with Cheryl Strayed's work has fueled much of that wandering; the collection of essays by a single author that I ordered for the course turned out to be something of a bomb, but the two Strayed essays and her email responses to our questions have been so generative.

I'm gonna miss this class. I know there are three weeks left, but still. The classes in which I learn the most are the ones I miss the most. Of course, that's not saying much since I always get nostalgic toward the end.