It’s so hard to say good-bye: A note of gratitude

I THINK we were all kidding about throwing me off the cliff. Jerry does look a bit suspicious though. (Enactus Laurier in Haiti, 2015)

Four years ago, on the first Thursday morning after Labour Day, I woke up nauseous as hell for a job that I couldn’t believe I was about to start. All day, I couldn’t fight the butterflies. Was I really going to teach at Laurier, my alma mater? What if I fell flat on my face? Should I do the Ellen dance as I walk down the stairs to music?

I showed up to class 15 minutes early, with a stack of course outlines so high and so heavy that I thought I would drop them. A student interrupted me on my way in. “Hey!” he called out. “Sweet,” I thought. "This guy’s going to help me carry this monstrous pile!" Instead, he gave me a puzzled look and asked  “Are you the TA?”.. haha. At least I didn’t fall flat on my face. (I also never worked up the courage to run the Ellen bit at the start of class.)

The minute class started, I knew with more clarity than I can describe that I was in the right place; I could just feel it. Two hundred bright eyed students were looking at me with anticipation, excited to start their undergraduate careers.

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