Extra: Students Cheer Their Professor Up

Tonight my students--well, one of them, a guy who is among the most talkative--asked if we could have a party on Wednesday, which is the last night of class. I thought it was very sweet. They're so young, most of them, first semester in college. "Sure," I said, "we can have a party. You guys can bring stuff." Then I said, "I'll bring some stuff too, I'll bring soda and chips or something." Meanwhile, I'm thinking, this is after coming from work and then physical therapy and lugging my big bag around with all their papers, how am I going to do this? But okay, I'll do it somehow. Then another one of the guys, who didn't talk much during the first half of the term, and now seems to be always talking, although usually he's on some kind of tangent, and addresses his comments directly to me rather than to the class, said, "I'll bring these," gesturing at the Cup O' Noodles soup he had been consuming with gusto. "I can steal 25 of them." I have no idea what he was talking about--where was he going to steal them from?--and I didn't really want to know, so I just gave him a blank look and moved on.

Later on, in the adjunct room, I told one of my colleagues this story. He thought it was very funny. We wondered if the student would actually bring cups of soup for everyone, and if so, would he have added the water and heated them up somewhere first?

I am very tired tonight but feeling more peaceful.