Nothing is more disappointing than a break during the school year. Winter break is of course the worst. Other breaks at least don’t pretend to be anything more than a merciful catch-up period, but winter break is so tantalizing — all those glorious open weeks! But by the time you’ve finished grading and other miscellaneous obligations that have piled up during the term — and often, as this time around for me, dealing with the fact that your body has taken the last day of class as some kind of “now it’s okay to get sick” signal — you can hardly get your bearings before holiday obligations begin. And once those are past, you have to turn to class prep.
At least I’m not on quarters, though. The break between the winter and spring quarter is the cruellest joke of all — setting you up for a spring quarter of barely keeping up and then a full month of playing catch-up once the summer finally begins.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 8:45 am
This will be my first winter break from teaching upper level classes and I have experienced this disappointment for the first time. I was looking forward to working on a new project over the Winter break and now it doesn’t look nearly as long as it did a few weeks ago.
Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 6:57 am
Wow, it turns out this kind of post is something of a tradition for me. That one was probably better.