text: I know I'm supposed to do research during sabbatical, and I did some of that, but mostly I did a lot of thinking. My thinking was about my teaching, but not the kind of teaching in the classroom so much. That part gets a little boring. I've been teaching a long time, the same books, the same essays, the same rooms. But you--you're different. At least if I invited you here.
  
  I didn't invite you here because my research matches yours, no, not at all. I invited you here because there's something special about you. We have a particular connection, or maybe I just want to tell you something.
  
  So I have a message for each of you, and there are few enough of you that you can each have your own message unlike the foolish, generic faculty who even now are thinking of me with loathing as they read what I think of them.
  
  But you all know me really, not the mask I wear to faculty meetings. God it feels good to talk in my normal voice to you, I swear.
  
  So please, I ask you again. Who are you?
  
  > Meg, your favorite.
  Ah, Meg, what can I say? You have some sort of nasaly voice immodulation disorder, but that's not your fault. You should probably get your nose checked, something about your septum.
  
  At first I thought you were asleep in my classes until I got to know you. That is how you listen. You were able to recite back to me nearly all of my lecture verbatim. You have a scary computer between your long-lobed ears.
  
  You came to class twice in a matador's cape and once opened a pack of Games Workshop plastic miniatures on the desk in front of you in my History of the English Language class. You began clipping them, and posing your wood elf archers, just as another girl might knit in class. If you had taken out an airbrush and started to paint them I would not have stopped you.
  
  > Ah, Meg.
  I used your tests for answer keys, handwriting looking as though you were writing not with your dominant hand, not with you non-dominant hand, but with some other, even less-dominant, third hand. But beneath the scrawls were gold, brilliance.
  
  I adored you, your pocky nose, your monobrow, your clothes that you had clearly been wearing since seventh grade, your oval head.
  
  I am sure you have so many memories of me as well, of our time together, as you took all of my classes, even the ones you placed out of. What do you remember first? What springs to mind?
  
  > Prof. Gower, you remember mostly the big cup of tea you were drinking.
  You can just call me Gower. It's ok.
  
  > OK. It's weird, but OK. Prof. Gower, you remember mostly the big cup of tea you were drinking.
  Yes, our first meeting! Freshman writing. I came to class holding a comically large mug with three teabags of strong Irish Breakfast tea, and a big dollop of cream. We saw each other through a screen of steam from my mug.
  
  "We can drink in here?" you said.
  
  "Sure."
  
  "And eat?"
  
  "Sure. Go nuts."
  
  Your eyes grew wide as you realized that you were in college and all rules were out the window. At last! High school, I figured, had been bad for you. Wasn't it, Meg?
  
  But now, you would fly.
  
  You brought in hot cocoa (with marshmallows, both mini and maxi); stalks of celery with sunbutter for dipping; a bowl of blue M&Ms and a salad kit from Trader Joe with sun-dried tomatoes, kale, and sesame sticks with lemon honey mustard dressing, which you ate with laquered chopsticks.
  
  And yes, the other students thought you were odd, but you must have always gotten those looks before without the support, the unconditional support of a professor.
  
  I sipped, you ate, we learned.
  
  What else do you remember? When you really think back. What stands out?
  
  > Prof. Gower, you mean, Gower, remember the book club!
  After I loaned you my aging VHS copies of Kelly Unicornstrider and Friends, which you consumed in what I assume was one glorious day in our library's archive room, which has a working VCR, I realized we shared a bond.
  
  So when you started an F/SF bookclub and put up posters all over the school, of course I agreed to be the faculty sponsor. Five people showed including you, only two having read the book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, you silly girl, choosing an 800-page brick for the first meeting.
  
  You tried gamely to spark conversation about the novel, echoing some of my own valiant efforts to extract participation from reluctant students when my classes are silent. You eventually launched into a monologue with your monotone, your remarkably amusing and admirably persistent monotone.
  
  I swung by and rescued you, chatting casually, leaning on the chair, talking about the novel, helping everyone participate even if they hadn't done the reading, really the key skill of any good professor. Remember that, Meg. Someday you'll be a professor, and you'll need to know that skill.
  
  > That's all you have time for, your dear.
  It ended too quickly for you, Meg, dead a few weeks before graduation, your second attempt more successful. It must have, in some sick way, galled you that your first attempt had failed. You hated failing.
  
  Your second note told me only that you were disappointing everyone, but I know I am not everyone. You didn't disappoint me, and I know you know that now, since the ghost of you is reading this page.
  
  > Goodbye, Meg.
  My lovely ghost, who lingers in my office--I see you in there, almost, when there's a gust of wind that riffles pages.
  
  I have them all here, listening, or reading, at least. They are here.
  
  What do we do with ghosts like you? Do you stay and haunt them a while? Or shall we let them leave untroubled? Or perhaps let them sit and think about what they did over the long weekend, trapped here, how they drove girls like you to your sad fate. My sad ghost, my favorite, choose for me.
  
  > let them stay here a while.
  Yes, that may be best. Let us think about it a while, and more importantly, let them think. They will bang on the walls and doors, but there will be nobody on campus this long weekend, most likely, and there is no cell service in that room.
  
  I picture tears and decisions, and vows to treat girls like you better, and they will realize how valuable I am, and how fine my sabbatical presentation was. And when they are released early next week, they will have all become finer people who treat me with respect.
  
  We can dream, my Meg, you dear dead dork, you. Watch over them.
  
  This ends my required Sabbatical Presentation. Trusting that it was satisfactory.