Will I miss it?

Today is my last day as employee of the University of Cambridge.

While I inevitably contemplate what I will miss from now on, I cannot help thinking, as a summary of my eleven years in Cambridge, about whether I have missed anything, professionally, during this time. It may sound odd coming from someone with a world reputation in children's literature studies, but I have profoundly missed teaching, supervising and researching things other than children's literature. I have missed teaching Shakespeare, Chekhov, Selma Lagerlöf and J. M. Coetzee. I have missed teaching literary theory and close reading. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that children's literature research is inferior – I am still adamant that children's literature scholars are leading, not following. But I have felt that a whole range of my knowledge and skills was never claimed. (Certainly, no one appreciated my knowledge of Nordic children's literature. Actually, no one appreciated my knowledge of Australian or Canadian children's literature either).

However, I was hired to teach, supervise and research children's literature full time, which is more than most my children's literature colleagues can dream of. I have tried hard to enrich my professional skills with various interdisciplinary opportunities.

I will miss the environment. I will miss being among brilliant young people from whom I have learned so much, maybe more than they have learned from me. I will miss college lunches that are so much more than just “free meals”. I will even miss committee meetings. Most committees I have been on or chaired were quite interesting, albeit time consuming.

I will miss the city with its riches of opportunities for culture, its museums, concert halls, its gardens and riverbank walks. I will miss its posh restaurants and small coffee shops.

Cambridge, I will miss you!