It’s the beginning of an eventful week and I feel nervous, elated, anxious, and enthused, all at once. Tomorrow I will not just enter an actual classroom within a university for the first time in two years, I will be teaching. I went to the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano on Monday to pick up my identity card. It read, ‘Academic Staff’, and it thrilled me to hold it in my hand. 

It was an unusual set of circumstances that led me to this temporary teaching gig. I had ranted to a local feminist curator about the absence of sisterhood groups in South Tyrol and she directed me to one on Facebook, which I joined instantly. My partner and I were scrolling through multiple old posts when he came across a listing about a vacancy at the university. The Faculty of Arts and Design was looking for an English language instructor to lead a seminar course called “Gender Equity and Equality Skills in Working Life Situations”. The application process involved prescribing a teaching module for the 18-hour-duration of the course. I was between Venice and Tramin as the deadline approached. I was exhausted on the eve of the application deadline. I’d had my first vaccine and the timing coincided with my PMS, which made me feel incapacitated. I had the worst backache ever and my body felt bulldozed. I had every intention of sleeping and waking up early the next morning to write it out and hit send. But my partner egged me on. He motivated me to sit up the night before and finish the course proposal. In the meantime, he had already filled out all the other logistical details on the website—a tedious process in itself. So I powered through and conceived what I still feel is an exceptionally creative proposal.