Something just humanized my 100 first-year students so much for me...

I was grading a test I had given them the other day. The test was quite quick to write, and so many of them sat there for a good ten minutes or more waiting for everyone else to finish.

I needed to turn over their tests to write something on the back, and I saw the sweetest traces of them there on the back page, where obviously they'd killed some time doodling while they waited for everyone else to finish. There were lots of instances of writing their own names with hearts, of course - but I even found that sweet - and there were many melancholy song lyrics, a fragment of an Edgar Allen Poe poem, pictures of flowers with the word "fleur" next to them in graceful cursive. An "I heart Sharon."

For some reason, this just warmed my heart. And that's hard to do these days.