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I've just finished teaching my last ever class at Sussex University. Granted, I was the TA, not the full teacher, but still, they were my class, and I taught them. They were a good lot, maybe not the fastest workers, maybe not the sharpest minds (though some of them were damn hot).
I've taught Real-Time Embedded Systems, Advanced Microprocessor Systems, Computer Networks, Advanced Network Technologies and High-Level Integrated Circuit Design in my time, and had generally good results from my classes. These are all courses I've studied, and as the wheel turned I was asked to teach or TA them. I did so happily. Knowledge-Transfer is something I'm apparently quite good at, so long as my students are willing to learn.
But now that's it. We've moved to Brighton Uni, where we currently have no teaching responsibilities, and I'll probably leave the department before that changes (it'll change in the new school year, most likely, and my contract runs out on the 30th of September). No more teaching for me. I don't think I'd want to teach full-time, but I'm going to miss it nonetheless.
As for the title, well, that's kind of how we left Sussex Uni altogether, I think. Snuck out the back door while everyone else was looking elsewhere: there are people in the Engineering School Office who are surprised to hear we're leaving, never mind that we've left and the rooms we used to occupy have been stripped.
I spent ten years of my life in that university, most of them in that building. I helped get the cafe installed (I even repaired their fridge and coffee machine when they broke down). I helped rebuild the uni radio station pretty much from the ground up. I helped save the Chemistry department from closure. I kept the fencing club ticking over by repairing kit and doing admin until we managed to get a committee put together, the year when it all went a bit wrong. I've looked after their minibuses. I've served on their IT Helpdesk. So many memories.
I passed my viva there.
And the last one, likely the most enduring, is slinking away after TAing that lesson, unable to look the students in the eye. Pressing my nose briefly to the glass in the cafe, watching them pack up for the day after all their customers have left, and being unable to open the door and bid the cafe staff farewell.
I'm going to miss the old place. And ... I wonder if my inability to say goodbye is my subconscious being unable to let it go. Time will tell.
When swinging between branches (brachiating!), it is sometimes necessary to let go of one branch before having a hold of the next, in order to bridge a gap slightly larger than you are. I wonder if that's what this lurching feeling in the centre of my chest is.
2011/03/18 - Dom (03:08)
No, sometimes when you have to leave a place because it wasn't suitable or because you've outgrown them it feels hard to leave.
If it's because you were unsuitable then you get the feeling because, although you tried to fit in, ultimately you failed.
If it's because you outgrew the place, then although saying good-bye to people should be easy, it's difficult because you realise they're still going to be there, and thus haven't outgrown it yet ( if ever ).
To work out which, had someone from any place you remember fondly told you they were moving on in a similar time span, would you have said goodbye to them? If you wouldn't, you were unsuitable, and if you would, you outgrew the place just as they did. Saying goodbye to those who are stuck there is just cruel, what would they say to you? "Congratulations"? If they don't know what you've ben doing, they don't know what you're moving on to. Stop worrying. They shouldn't care, you're just another person to them. If you're not just another person, you'll have their details already, those people tend to stick around.
Yes, it holds a lot of memories, and each memory is also an experience you can draw on to prove that you've bettered yourself, which is the only reason to reminisce.
If anything, the glass should be half full, because yes you're moving on, but it has to be better, otherwise you'd have opted not to move. It should be half full because a new place is a new beginning, your past can be completely ignored if you so choose. It should be half full because a new place gives new opportunities, some of which might be identical to old opportunities, but it's a new location, which is half the fun. If should be half full because old places stagnate.
2011/03/18 - Craig (14:00)
While I have never been in any one place quite that long, there are a lot of places Ive been where I would consider myself to have integrated fully and know everyone.
Thinking back, as I have left each one I always leave with a level of uncertainty, a level of sadness wishing it would all continue... Then a month later I'm stuck into the next challenge and I'm finding it hard to keep up with all the people from the previous place.
That said, I hate leaving, I hate moving on... well, while it happens anyway....