kind words, soothing to the ear

As you know, I am not one to hide my little light under a barrel. (Am I mixing metaphors here?) When something nice happens, I like to share it with you. Yesterday I was feeling very cut off from my roots, happy but unmoored, when I received this email from a former U of T student. As you can imagine, it made my day.

I tried a new writing course, and I am sure it was well-organized for what it was, but your instruction was in another league entirely. You are so well-informed, confident, passionate, wise, clever, and mature in how you present yourself and in what you draw from your students. Your comments on our work are masterful and spot on. You treat us as mature adults and writers from the get-go and you focus on the writing. You get us down to it, and you work us, giving us lots of opportunity to read and learn from critique, allowing us no apologies or excuses.

So, because of you, I have to withdraw from this course (which shall remain nameless). It does not compare on any level, except that the instructor was well-prepared and seemed knowledgeable, and I am sure, quite competent.

Competent doesn't cut it for me any more.

So thanks a lot!! Harrumph!!