Trying to remember why I am here.

I am 21 years old, I am in Graduate school, and my head hurts.

I think that 5060 makes me cranky (then again, it might just be school in general). For every theory that we discuss, I find a problem. For every idea we explore to aid our teaching, I find a problem. In every Freshman Composition paper that I grade, I find a problem.

It might be that I am just tired. It might be that I have started work on my final papers/projects. Or it might be that I am thinking too much about teaching Composition, forgetting that, if I do become a professor, they will eventually let me teach classes that I enjoy.

Whatever it is, I feel particularly inclined to remember why I am here.

All of my "Ohio friends," those in my graduating class in high school and those that I met in college, are still exactly where I left them: beginning their Junior or Senior years of college. Goofing off. Doing stupid things. Posting pictures of themselves, drunk and half-naked, on their Facebook without thinking twice about it.

As it has started to grow "colder" here (keep in mind, it was in the thirties in Ohio this week), I am starting to miss my old house, my old friends. Sitting on the porch swing, wrapped up in my comforter, watching the young ghetto kids walk to the bus stop.

I miss Ella Danger, my one and a half-year-old companion, who, according to her father, has learned some interesting behavior. (She "passionately kissed" her doll the other day.) I miss my four male roommates, who are all between the ages of 19-20 and confused. I miss the local market, Yellow Springs, walking to school. I miss being the "problem-solver," and keeping my friends out of trouble.

So, in light of all of this missing, I have been starting to forget why I am here. In Graduate school. When I could be screwing around with the rest of my friends.

In what should have been my Sophomore year of college, I took a course on Contemporary American Fiction with Thomas Leclair, one of the most enlightening professors to have crossed my path. The course met twice a week, we had in-depth quizzes every day, and it was challenging, to say the least.

One day, during our discussion of Toni Morrison's Paradise, (which I recommend, even if you hated Beloved) Leclair mentioned that he wasn't there to teach us, he was there to learn from us. Above all else, he wanted to think about something that he hadn't thought about before. And he wanted us to inspire this.

It was then that I decided that I would like to be a professor.

I do not think that we are there to teach the students everything. I want to learn from my students. I think we are there to make sure that they think, and that they think enough that they find some new idea, some new thing that they can talk about. I want to inspire my students to inspire me.

I am tired, and confused because it is November and still warm outside. I do not know if I will ever nail down a teaching philosophy, but I think I might have just uncovered a chunk of it. And I'm still not sure if I'm here because this is part of my great "life plan," or if this adventure into Graduate school was just "something to do."