At noon on September 2, Wu Dao and Meng Yihong made lunch together. After eating, Wu Dao returned to his room to rest.

At half past two in the afternoon, the Department of Chinese held a meeting of all teachers to arrange the opening of the school. Meng Yihong took Wu Dao to the conference room and introduced Wu Dao to the leaders of the department. At the beginning of the meeting, the head of the department asked Wu Dao to stand up and meet with everyone, and talked about his situation. Wu Dao noticed that most of the teachers in the department were in their thirties and forties, and the proportion of old teachers was relatively small, indicating that most of the teachers had come to the college in the past ten years.

During the meeting, the teachers were relatively quiet, but there was a person who had been smoking, which caused the dissatisfaction of the teacher next to him and gave him advice, but the teacher who smoked did not extinguish the cigarette in his hand. Wu Dao is a non-smoker, although he does not object to others smoking, but he is very disgusted with "second-hand smoke" in public, and he can't help but take a few more glances at the teacher who smokes. I saw that the teacher was about forty years old, with a cigarette between his two fingers, a cloud of smoke in his mouth, and an expressionless look in front of him, as if he was a self-respecting person. The head of the department probably couldn't stand it anymore, so he interrupted his speech and said to the teacher who was smoking:

"Teacher Xin, if you want to smoke, it's better to go outside and smoke. Also, I've heard that you smoke when you teach your students, which is very bad. Let's smoke less cigarettes in the future. ”

The head of the department spoke in person, and Mr. Xin had no choice but to extinguish the cigarette in his hand. The meeting continued.

At the meeting, the teaching of various subjects was assigned, and Wu Dao was also arranged to give a public lecture on 12 September for veteran teachers to give their opinions.

At the end of the meeting, Wu Dao and the teacher Xin met together. Teacher Xin took the initiative to stretch out his hand to greet Wu Dao and said:

"Teacher Wu Dao, I am Xin Shaoqing of Ming and Qing literature. Xin is the hard Xin, Shaoqing is the Shaoqing of Du Shaoqing in "The History of Confucianism". ”

Because Xin Shaoqing smoked during the meeting, Wu Dao didn't have a good impression of him, but the other party took the initiative to stretch out his hand to say hello, and he had to reach out and shake hands with the other party and said:

"I am a new teacher Wu Dao, Koutian Wu, the Tao of the road, teaching foreign literature, please take care of me in the future."

"In the future, you can come to me for anything in the academy. Don't just look at the surface, I may not look like a good person at first glance, and some people look good on the surface, who is what kind of person, you will know after a long time. ”

"Okay, I got it."

After coming out of the conference room, Wu Dao and Meng Yihong returned to the dormitory. On the way, Wu Dao recalled what Xin Shaoqing said, and felt more and more that this person was unpredictable, so he asked Meng Yihong:

"Teacher Meng, what kind of person is that Teacher Xin Shaoqing?"

"He's just a bit weird, but he's not a bad person. Speaking of which, he is also an old man in the Chinese department, and he is also one of the earliest graduate students in the department. Meng Yihong said.

"How do I think he has a sense of arrogance, and I think no one is as good as him?"

"You see that, too?"

"yes, he's arrogant too obvious."

"Mr. Xin is actually very talented in literature, good at writing new style poems, and is also well-known in Fangzhou City. All literary talents, especially poets, have some habits that are different from ordinary people, and they seem very different. Because of this, Mr. Xin couldn't get along with many colleagues, and the department leaders didn't like him very much. In addition, although he is good at writing poetry, he neglects to study, and he suffers a little in the evaluation of professional titles, which may have had some impact on his psychology, and it has become what he is now. ”

"I see."

"You have to learn from him, for university teachers, literary creation can only be a hobby, and the main energy should still be on doing research."

"I see, thank you Teacher Meng for the reminder."

"Also, you are going to give a public class in a few days, although it is just a formality, but the first lecture is in front of all the teachers, you still have to prepare carefully."

"Good. Actually, I have a little teaching experience, when I was a graduate student at Jeju University, I worked as a teacher in a private middle school for a year, teaching the first year of junior high school. ”

"So you're an old teacher, too. Teaching experience is also helpful for lecturing. In terms of lecturing skills alone, teaching elementary and middle school students can be more difficult than teaching college students. But there is still a big difference between the two, and the classes for college students and graduate students are also different. ”

"I have a deep understanding of this. Teacher Meng, should I listen to another teacher's class? ”

"No, I don't. You came all the way from undergraduate and graduate school, and the teachers at Jeju University gave lectures much better than the teachers at Bangju College. If you want to learn the methods and skills of lecturing, you can listen to a few episodes of the program of "Hundred Lectures", we may not be able to speak so well, but it is still possible to learn it. Skills are secondary, and the main thing is to enrich the content. ”

"Thank you, Mr. Meng, I will prepare well."

After returning to the dormitory, Wu Dao immediately began to prepare for the open class. He first watched several episodes of "Hundred Lectures" on the Internet, and then looked up some information.

On September 3, the sophomores and seniors of Fangzhou College opened their doors and the library opened. Wu Dao went to the library to borrow books, consult materials, and prepare his own handouts.

Wu Dao originally planned to talk about Camus, but when he was preparing, he found that although he had read many of Camus's works, if he really wanted to stand on the podium and talk about this French writer, his own knowledge reserve was actually far from enough, and the time left for him was very short, and finally he decided to talk about Sartre that he was most familiar with.

After the handout was written, Wu Dao took it to Meng Yihong and asked her to give her opinions. Meng Yihong finished reading it and said:

"Wu Dao, I thought that you might be a little radical, but I didn't expect to be so radical. You have to show me the handouts first, and if you just stand on the podium and talk about it, you will get into trouble. ”

"Teacher Meng, is there something wrong with what I wrote?" Wu Dao asked suspiciously.

"It's not that it's wrong, it's that you can't say it like that, or you have to say it in a measured way. You can praise Sartre, but you can't say that Chinese intellectuals are worthless. Besides, you shouldn't criticize Fangzhou College in class, these things can only be said in private, even when you teach students, but this time it's an open class. These remarks on this occasion will make people think that you are very unstable and difficult to get along with. Furthermore, is Sartre really that perfect? You're afraid you've been poisoned by him. You change the handouts to be more calm, you have just joined the work, and you should make a good impression on your colleagues. ”

"I see."

In the next few days, Wu Dao revised the handouts three times, and finally got Meng Yihong's approval.

In order to give a good lecture and leave a good impression on the department leaders and colleagues, Wu Dao also went to buy a new set of clothes. He put it on in the dormitory and showed it to Meng Yihong. Meng Yihong said with a smile:

"I didn't see it before, you turned out to be a handsome boy."

"Teacher Meng, don't make fun of me, the word Xiaosheng can barely be used on me, but where can I talk about being handsome?"

"You don't usually pay attention to dressing up, so no one says you're handsome. If you dress up so handsome every day, the girls chasing you will line up. ”

"Teacher Meng, you're making fun of me again."

"You should have confidence in yourself, in fact, you are still very attractive to girls."

Looking at the amiable Meng Yihong, Wu Dao felt more and more that the middle-aged woman in front of him was not like his elder, but more like a sister.

"Teacher Meng, I don't want to call you Teacher Meng anymore."

"And what do you want to call me?"

"I want to call you sister."

"Do you often recognize someone else as your sister?" Meng Yihong joked.

"No, I don't have a sister. When I used to work in the Hecheng Town Government of Qicheng County, my female colleagues asked me to call them sister, but I couldn't say it because I felt very awkward. But after getting along with Teacher Meng for a few days, I found that I was very close to you and wanted to call you sister. ”

"Well, I don't want to be your elder either. I always say that I am an elder, as if I am very old, and I am actually not much older than you. You call me sister, and I feel like I'm getting younger. In the future, you will call me Sister Meng just like the younger female teachers in the department. However, you can't call him that in front of Senior Brother Tian, otherwise I wouldn't know what to call him. ”

"Okay, Sister Meng."

Since then, Wu Dao has had an older sister.

On September 10, freshmen entered the school, and Wu Dao joined the work of welcoming new students.

Each student came to Fangzhou College with a different mood, and some were very happy, because their usual grades were not admitted to the university, and they were finally admitted to Fangzhou College, which was a great luck; Some are very disappointed, because they originally got good grades in the exam, but they were finally transferred here; There are also people who come thousands of miles to go to school here, but they don't report to school, and they only walk around the campus and go back to repeat their studies, of course, the number of such people is very small.

If Wu Dao wasn't a teacher at Fangzhou Academy, he might have persuaded those students who had been transferred to go back to repeat, but thinking of what Meng Yihong said, he understood that his current identity did not allow him to say such things. No matter who asks Wu Dao how Fangzhou College is, he will say that it is still good here.

Looking at these energetic faces walking into Fangzhou College, Wu Dao remembered the scene when he first entered college, at that time he didn't know how his college life would be spent and what the future would look like, but in the blink of an eye, the future he was looking forward to at that time had become the past, and now that he returned to the university with a new identity, what would the future look like?

At nine o'clock in the morning of 12 September, Wu Dao gave an open lecture in a large classroom in the Chinese Department. He and Meng Yihong arrived in the classroom ten minutes early. As soon as he stood on the podium, Wu Dao began to get nervous, his heart was pounding, and he looked helpless. Meng Yihong said to him:

"I was even more nervous when I first gave a lecture than you are now, so calm down, no problem. Besides, you have been a teacher, so you should be more confident. When it's time to give a lecture, it's just that the first few minutes will be a little nervous, and the latter will be fine. Before a lecture, taking a deep breath can relieve tension. ”

"I see." Wu Dao said.

"I'll sit in the front row, and when you're nervous, just look at me."

"Okay."

Meng Yihong found a seat in the first row and sat down, and Wu Dao also sat on the chair and looked through the handouts again. The teachers of the Chinese Department arrived one after another, and a few minutes later, Wu Dao's first class began:

"Hello teachers, I'm a new teacher, my name is Wu Dao. Today, let's study the works of the French writer Sartre. Sartre was both a philosopher and a writer, and his existential philosophy and literature influenced many people. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the highest honor in the literary world, but refused to accept it......"

As Meng Yihong said, Wu Dao only felt very nervous in the first few minutes, and he spoke very quickly, but after all, he had a year of experience as a substitute teacher in middle school, and he quickly found the state of lecturing, especially when he saw Meng Yihong with a smile on his face, the tension was greatly reduced.

Wu Dao's open class was a success. After he finished speaking, the head of the department first made comments, and then several teachers gave him advice, saying that he spoke too fast, that he should speak more slowly in class, and that he should communicate and interact with students more in class, etc.

At the end of the open class, the teachers walked out of the classroom one by one. Before Xin Shaoqing left, he walked up to Wu Dao and said:

"Teacher Wu, you said it well."

In the end, only Wu Dao and Meng Yihong were left in the classroom. Meng Yihong smiled and said to Wu Dao:

"I see the way you give a lecture, and it seems that you still enjoy the feeling of lecturing."

"Sister Meng made fun of me again. When I gave a lecture just now, I was a little nervous at first, but then I felt like I was back on the same podium where I used to work in Jeju. Wu Dao said.

"Judging by your performance today, you are indeed a good fit to be a teacher. You have been a middle school teacher, and now you are a university teacher, and the profession of teacher is really destined for you. ”

Wu Dao suddenly remembered that Si Baifang had also said almost the same thing to him, and couldn't help but look at Meng Yihong carefully. Meng Yihong felt a little strange, so he asked Wu Dao:

"What are you watching me do? Is there something dirty on my face? ”

"It's not. It was the sentence that Sister Meng just said that reminded me of a person. She said almost exactly the same thing to me as you did. ”

"Who is it?"

"It's Si Baifang, the girl I told you I liked. We used to be teachers in a private middle school. The first time I gave a lecture, she said the same thing after class. ”

"There is such a thing. However, that is more likely to show that you are indeed suitable for the profession of teacher. ”

"Sister Meng, I should thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to become a university teacher at Fangzhou College. ”

"No thanks. I'm your sister, what's polite? Meng Yihong said with a smile.

From this day on, Wu Dao felt that he was really a university teacher.