My time is ending and I will soon be returning to Athens. I have been teaching 19 amazing students during these past weeks. I walk to the bus stop at 7:30 in the morning pulling my computer wrapped in a garbage bag inside the rolling bag to protect it from the rain. I stop at the Porters’ Lodge for the keys to my classroom, lift and to the office where I store the world’s longest Ethernet cord. There are four porters who know all, keep track of all and I don’t know how the college would function without them. They are fabulous, gracious, smiling, and on top of the questions I ask before I even ask them. I go to the dining hall where there can be no hats, no books, no satchels, no book bags. These are left in the entry way. I go through a line where the staff greets me and gives me what I ask for. There is hot food, fruit, cereal, lots of coffee and two juices. I eat breakfast among the students and with the graduate students and other Trinity residents. Then I go to my class room and set everything up. Lots of wires connect my personal computer to their system and I am ready for class. There is a water cooler at the back of the room and one of the only accessible toilets at the college just next door.
Each day is a challenge with the weather, with the exhaustion of the students (they go out every night and travel every weekend) and I have had two conversations with students that have started in tears but ended with enthusiasm. My job is to teach.
I share three photos. The first photo is of the chapel and how I enter Trinity every morning. The second photo has two buildings. The building on the left is the home of the president of Trinity College, Sir Ivor Roberts. Yes, he lives on campus. Obviously his wife doesn’t mind living where people work and study. The building just in front is staircase 7 and where I teach. My classroom is on the second floor just right of the entrance for staircase 7. The third photo is inside my classroom.
Leara Rhodes 