This past weekend was our Spring Parents’ Weekend, and many more parents showed up than the one in the fall (because that one was marred with swine flu hysteria). It was actually a very encouraging day, one that helped give me a bit of perspective as to how much has happened in the past eight months, how close I have gotten with my physics buddies, and how meaningful this teaching gig can be. One mom came in and said “I kept asking my son if I was going to get to meet you today, because he talks about you all the time!” (and her son rocks, he’s the bomb – glad he likes me as much as I like him). Another one, the mother of a very troubled little man, told me how great of an experience that their family has had with me and how she wants her other child to have me too. As rock hard stone cold as you think I am, I was very touched.

And even the ones that I thought went badly, because I had to inform parents that their son or daughter needs a bit of a kick in the pants, weren’t as bad as I thought. One of my students’ father kept remarking to his son (who was in the room) about how disappointed he was with him throughout the entire conference, and I felt so bad that I semi-apologized to him when we all got back to school – he said “oh no, don’t worry – all my teachers said the same exact thing.” And even more surprising, I told another boy’s father that he was operating in his own little world (I may have used the phrase “la-la land”) and needs to come back to planet earth, and then he told me later that mine was his best one.

Gotta love this job.