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After leaving the office late for class, having to explain the mysteries of "Tensigrity" to my class so they can be "Gun-ho on the subject, and seeing their young faces "sooo full of enthusiam" to tackle the subject like "Green berets in Basrah"... leaving nothing but their footprints... I know why I teach... Because I can touch the future and steal some of their spirit in the process.

Cal Poly Pomona has a policy of "no repeat customers" (students cannot take the same professor twice) and I arrived at the Cal Poly staff meeting late as usual... I was interrogated by my colleagues about my roster, and stating emphatically "I did not recognize a name in it..." of course I had not checked it since my mind was still on Spring break...

However, when the dust settled and started reading their names, I discovered that over 75% were frequent flyers... My old students had managed to cross the borders of educational red-tape, and show up as undocumented aliens do, one by one... to say, "Yes we are here for some more tough love... and learning". We forged this alliance on the face of "Big Brother" and went about our business of... Slacking has no place in your life of becoming an architect anymore... Took them outside to the courtyard and did my usual routine...

Everyone got the "Come to Jesus speech" and the dog and pony show and finally I got in my gas-guzzling LR3 (or "RRRR... as we call it for its antics), picking up my usual parking ticket for parking on the red zone, I drove home with no traffic, at 90 miles/hour, blasting music and as I approached Palm Springs, I could see the dusty mauve colors of the mountains, the deep blue Accurender sky, and the deep shadows casted by our magnificent sunset... I was finally heading home!!!

I need to remember these days, when I get tired, huffy and just stuck on smoggy California freeways in the future... so I can recall for an instance why I refuse to give up my teaching on the face of everything I have to do to keep a viable architectural practice day in and day out... Simple, because I love my students, my teaching and the opportunity to touch the future and that will keep me away from becoming a cynic, a has been or even better yet, because a part of me will continue to be reborn in each one of them as they become leaders in our depleted field of Architecture...

They are a force to be reckoned with... Bring it on Spring Quarter, we are ready to rock...

Ana