Tonight is the last time I meet you as a teacher. After I give you your final grade before summer vacation, I will no more be your teacher.
I hope then that we keep contact as friends. From that moment, you will have to call me by my name (which is given to me for this purpose), and not professor (which I have never been familiar with). Please feel free to contact me through the channels I gave you, I will be opened to all your requests (if they're reasonable). Do not hesitate to set an appointment with me for a meal, a beer, some non-hollywood movie, or a nice coffee afternoon.
You have given me a wonderful time every Tuesday evening. And I believe I have received more from you than what I gave you, the mere little things that I didn't stop repeating.
Of course, no one is perfect. I was shy and awkward at the beginning of the semester (this happens every beginning of semester), and sometimes I lost my patience. But you as a student, should participate more. You are all students in journalism, no matter you be a journalist or not in the future, it is important and primordial that you provide critical and analytical opinions. Even if you doubt on what your teacher says, it's absolutely okay. That's how society and history progresses (according to Machiavelli ??), and that's what freedom 0f speech is.
You have given me so much, my dear students.
After summer vacation, you will be counting the days before graduation. Lots of challenges are ahead, waiting for you! Be ambitious to influence the world with whatever you have in your hands, be it a keyboard or a microphone (or a glass of beer)!
I love you all.
Your friend, Taijing
