It’s good to be back at school.Sometimes I feel that I’m a little unique in thinking that, but in the days leading up to the return of school in the fall, I can’t wait.

Not that spending summers at home with a 10-year-old daughter who is constantly “bored” and a newly minted teenage-daughter who texts her way through days isn’t fulfilling, but I like to work and I miss the students.

After spending from 1990 to 2005 in a newsroom where every day is chaos, much like when school is in session, slowing down in the summer time is difficult for me. I can only do so many home projects and can’t really sit that long lounging by the pool, which people who don’t have my level of undiagnosed ADD can’t understand.

I like chaos. I like the hustle of school and the not knowing what each second of each day might bring.

Granted, at times it can get a little overwhelming putting out student fires and attending various faculty meetings and making sure this paper gets out six or seven times a semester, but I feel stimulated and useful and energized.

I liken the first day back at school like a box of chocolates, to quote the ever-so-eloquent Forrest Gump. You spend that first class sizing up students, seeing what potential lies in them to participate in class and write great stories. You wrack your brain to remember new names and faces.

I assume they are all sizing me up too. What’s this guy all about? Is he going to be easy? Hard? Fun? Boring?

You see the freshmen at orientation doing their best to fit in and be cool. They have gone from kings and queens of the hill as seniors in high school to the low end of the totem pole as freshman and I love watching how they handle themselves in that new role.

And I enjoy seeing my colleagues again, chatting about their summer excursions and catching up.

Many colleagues always comment on how summer was too short and they say they aren’t quite ready to begin, to which I always say I’m psyched to be back, usually leading to inquisitive looks. But most of them have been at Castleton a lot longer than I have so maybe that comes with time.

But I hope I never lose that desire to get back to school each fall. I don’t think I will.

— David Blow