Year One Done!

I am sitting in my office having just finished all of my grades for this semester!  I can't believe that I am done with my first year as a professor.  I actually had a bit of a sentimental moment a little while ago.  I was sitting in my office listening to classical music while grading (I can't handle lyrics when I'm trying to pay attention to something), and my mind wandered to how messy my office is and how I really need to clean it.  Then it occurred to me what a change that is from when I first got here.  For the first few weeks my computer hadn't arrived and I hadn't lugged my old office stuff in yet, so I literally had an empty desk, a phone, and my laptop.  It was pretty depressing.  Now my office looks extremely lived in and homey.  I have student projects, telescopes, gifts from chatty janitor, gifts from coworkers, AAS meeting crap, etc. etc.  It's even junkier than my office in Austin was.  So I guess this is really home now. 

My first year was pretty much what I expected it to be.  Thanks to my teaching experience at UT the teaching wasn't a big jolt; it was more of a continuation of what I had been doing.  I have continued to learn lessons about how to teach, and am coming up with ideas of how to do things differently.  In the fall I teach my first astronomy majors course, so that will be a new challenge.  I like my coworkers and all of the people associated with the university.  I've gotten to know people here a lot better than those tentative first days.  I like my students (except right now since they turn into grade grubbing monsters at this time of year).  All in all, it was a good decision to come here.  I do sometimes stop and wonder how I ended up here in life.  I probably would not have predicted this when I started thinking about life plans in college.  But somehow here I am, and so far I have few complaints.