304B, Education Building - Now Empty; Family Room - Full

Well, it's done. I spent all day Monday and a bit of yesterday cleaning out my university office. Honestly, there wasn't a moment, or even a second, of sadness on my part. Others came in to check on my progress and a few tears were shed, but none from me. I am so at peace, so happy about my decision that all I feel is excitement.

Until I look at the boxes in the family room - and then go to my second floor office and see how full it already is with books that I brought home in May. Where in the world am I going to put all this stuff?!?! There'll be some serious recycling done in the next few weeks - I've decided to go through all the binders from the last 12 years and get rid of most of it. I mean really, if I haven't looked at my notes from Foundations of Educational Thought in the last two years, do I really think I'll look at them in the future? Do I really need to keep a paper I wrote on Mathematical Language in a Primary Classroom? Do I need to keep my class notes, plans and handouts from when I taught Intermediate Reading Language Arts? I seriously doubt it. So - all my notes, all the papers I ever wrote during my doctoral studies, all the binders filled with classes I taught and assignment guidelines, and even all my dissertation data will be recycled in the next week or so. (The '97 flood took care of all my highschool, undergraduate, and masters papers, as well as all my elementary teaching stuff.)

When I decide to go back to university teaching, things will have changed. All my precious state-of-the-art transparencies will be seen as archaic and out-of-date and I'll spend time recreating new ones anyway. There'll be new studies to read, new research to be gathered, and new students to teach. And, at that point, I'll be excited about teaching once again.

So - if anyone gets a huge kick out of going through old papers, notes, etc..., come join the fun. You'll find me on the back patio with a cup of coffee, loads of binders, a recycling bin and a garbage can close by.