Anything but my grading!

The peculiar rhythms of academic life do little but alienate us from our fellow human beings. A staff member in at our snack bar asked me earlier if I was ready for Christmas. Have I ever been ready for Christmas? Or have I been ready for Christmas since 1995? No, because I chose to spend my holiday preparations on wedding preparations!

Between grading, posting grades, and preparing for the MLA (which, mercifully, will be moving into January to ease the alienation), the whole holiday season gets short shrift. I can't even imagine how it is for friends and colleagues who celebrate Hanukkah, who must juggle holiday and final examinations. So I've decided that English faculty members round the world need to embrace Twelfth Night as their anchor point for the holiday season. Besides the clear Shakespearean references that can be exploited, Twelfth Night offers at least 14 days of free and clear holiday preparation after final grades are submitted. Moreover, academics (always in a state of genteel poverty--as one favorite graduate school professor described) could exploit "day after Christmas" sales to stretch their dollars. Integrate king's cake and wassail into the mix and we could have quite a festive holiday.

So friends, expect not Christmas cards from me. Oh no! If you get a card, it shall be a Twelfth Night card, mailed on January 2.

As the Year Draws to a Close...

I can't help but think of all the things the early days of December signify to the academic:

• The crushing regret of all the things that should have been said as the semester progressed that were left unsaid;
• The horrific realization that half the things that one believed one said were said in years past;
• The impossibility of a fully realized holiday season and promptly posted grades.

So for those of you who live in the limbo that is end of the fall semester, Happy Holidays, Happy Grading, and my condolences.