Grace and Ben

Yesterday morning, I went to the Waverly Farmer’s Market and bought some apples. Every year, I look forward with great anticipation to apple season. Apples are my favorite fruit. The apples I purchased were small, about the size of a billiard ball, and pale yellow-green in color. They were crispy and bright in flavor and tangy with a hint of sweetness. They tasted very fresh and new. As the weather gets cooler and days get shorter, the apples will grow larger and sweeter. This year, I am on a low carb, high protein diet, so I will probably not bake any apple pies. However, I can still enjoy the raw fruit.

It’s been a rough week back to work after visiting Ben and his family in Chicago/Wisconsin. I finally talked with all my bosses (current and former) about my plans to move out to Salt Lake City. My decision may seem foolish to my ambitious tenured faculty mentors, but the more I think about it, the more confident I am about my decision to try to get a teaching position at the University of Utah. The reason I went to graduate school in 2004 was because I wanted to teach chemistry. I felt that my undergraduate chemistry courses did not sufficiently prepare me to be an expert in the field and in order to teach the subject, I wanted more exposure to it. My Ph.D. and postdoctoral experiences provided venues where I could apply the concepts and hypotheses I learned in class to hands-on experiments where I could test my knowledge and gain new skills.

While I may not know everything there is to know about chemistry, I think that teaching  will help solidify my knowledge. I will spend as much time and effort as is necessary to learn to clearly communicate concepts I’ve learned to students who are being exposed to these concepts for the first time. My goal as a teacher is to help students who may enter college with slightly less chemistry background finish the class with a firm grasp of the key concepts. They will be able to apply these principles to problems in their chosen fields of study. I hope my students will finish the courses I teach with a profound respect for and interest in the subject.