pencil

For me it is joy, pleasure, contentment, childhood, though the latter is arguably not an emotion. Have you seen the all pencil blog? penciltalkDOTorg

These days - amusement. I found a pencil sharpener at the school bookstore which is also a windup toy in the shape of a silver stegosaurus. Sharpening the pencil winds up the toy, which then either walks along or (if you balance it on its hind legs and tail) dances and sways back and forth. My wife loves windup toys, so I had to get it for her. We named her Stella because of the alliterative quality. We keep her on the breakfast table so we can use her to sharpen our pencils for crosswords and acrostics.

Excitement, joy, the thrill of possibilities: That's what the smell of a wooden pencil reminds me.
I cannot approach a new pencil without feeling some sort of creative tension building up inside :)

How about that piece of graphite still lodged in my palm from gradeschool? No really, mostly the fun of drawing (and not worrying about making a mistake).

The first word that came to my mind was expectation

The first word that came to mind was 'possibilities'. New school year, new box of pencils, new box of potential.