COFFEE & BISCUITS

This quarter I am the TA for Intro to Macro (mostly freshman) and Intermediate Micro (= econ 101a at Berkeley, consists of sophomores and a couple juniors). The difficulty of the second class clearly surpasses the first class, judging from the eagerness that the students of the second class attend office hours. Thus, it also took much, much more time to TA than the first class. But the sense of fulfillment as a teacher is also much much greater. In fact, due to the work for the second class, I have been making the serious mistake of neglecting my own research, which is increasingly leading to disastrous consequences.

However, the reward from teaching is much happiness, when, for example, the following kind of email arrived at my email box one day:

“Hi Anna,

Thank you so much for the explanation. I now understand the
answer.

Thanks, student”

Moreover, it feels quite nice to scribble on the black board with people looking on. Walking to and fro and pointing to the blackboard. It felt strange in my first session, and when one student asks a question which I didn’t expect, my mind went BLANK. However, as the time goes by, I think I am getting used to the process and the enjoyment of doing it is increasing. It feels actually nice to have one hand in my pocket and the other hand holding a chalk.

Thus, the lifelines for my happiness have not been exhausted, in spite of what this Gothic monster sought to achieve otherwise.

FEBRUARY: FOCUS AT THE END-GOAL.