Sometimes, you get to hear what you need to hear....

I've been kind of unmotivated and down on my teaching for the past few days. Then, this morning, one of my last-semester students (who got an A in the class) stopped by and said, "Ecology TOTALLY pays off. The stuff I learned in that class is important to so many of the other classes I'm taking right now."

and she gave me the thumbs up.

Makes me feel a little better. (I thanked her for telling me. We don't always get a lot of positive feedback in academe and it's precious to us).