Oh, the people we deal with in this line of work. There are days when it can drive you nuts - politics, broken temp-control rooms, paperwork - but the students keep me on my toes in a lot of good ways. For New Year’s Eve I got to catch up with one of my former Honors students, John Binford. Currently a med student at Yale, budding proprietor of a pedicab business and a microbrewery, taking sanctioned sabbaticals to the Dominican Republic to work on nutrition improvement projects with the people. It is always amazing to soak in the energy that our best students bring to the table. Another of my former Honors undergrads is working on her Ph.D. now in entomology, and again I think I gained from the enthusiasm that she brought to her work in the field, in the lab, and getting ready for riding across the country on her bike (actually, John was on that trip too; and another undergrad that I worked closely with in her senior year also rode across the country....with the legacy of Fred Birchmore at UGa, maybe I should be planning my own post-tenure-decision trip....). Anyway, here’s to the beginning of another semester, and I hope I can bring back as much energy as I can from the holidays!

Tags: students