With retirement three weeks away, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about my teaching career. Until the mid-1990s, I always considered myself a failure because I had never been able to establish a career as a fulltime writer, but was merely a teacher. Then my friendship with Fei Fei developed, and I began to realize all the good things there were in my teaching career:

1. I really enjoy my students, not only spending time with them in the Math Lab, but also teaching the honors and advanced placement students;

2. My students respect me, both as a teacher and, in many instances, as a mentor and adviser;

3. I have formed friendships with many students which have survived past their graduation, and I hope to stay in touch with people such as Sneha, Kevin, Wenjing, Preeti, Suruchi, Sudarshan, Marwa, Tony, Aishwarya, Nini, Dimple, Gaby, Monisha, Sana, Jessica and possibly a few others for a long time;

4. The math teachers depend on me for advice and also to fight for them against the forces of incompetence;

5. I have received some gratifying kudos over the years from students and teachers, which may have inflated my ego unnecessarily, but also make me feel comfortable with my success as a teacher: the distinguished faculty award, the Valedictorian-Salutatorian dinners, the Asian-American Club tee shirts with my picture on it which over 40 students have already purchased;

6. So many people begging me not to leave, including teachers and students, many of the latter in person, but also the 140 members who joined the Facebook group.

I guess many people are not so lucky as to feel the appreciation of others as much as I have recently, nor do they truly appreciate how fortunate they have been in their life. While I will definitely miss all the good times, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, I’ll always have the math lab in my memory.