Thursday, March 08, 2007

How sad is it ...


... when you reach an age at which you look forward to spring break not for travel or time off or leisure, but because with a week of no classes and few appointments and sparse obligations, you can finally get some work done?

My students will be whooping it up in Florida and Mexico. I'll be huddled over my laptop finishing an essay on medieval animals, getting an edited collection in order, and obsessing about some paper presentations that have begun to loom.

On the positive side, I've just finalized summer plans. For the first time ever my London research junket will be en famille. Kid #1 is especially thrilled, since London has loomed large in his fantasies for quite some time. We found an apartment for two weeks not far from the British Museum. Shockingly, in these days of $1000 summer airfares, I even found "reasonable" tickets. Who needs Fort Lauderdale when they have London in July?

4 comments:

Glaukôpis said...

Hey, I never whooped it up in Florida or Mexico during spring break in undergrad! I used it to "finally get some work done"! ;-)

And London in July--fabulous!

Karl Steel said...

I promise more bloggy goodness from me next week, during my Spring Break. My students asked me, "Mr Steel, what are you doing with your break?" (this is after I darkly suggest that they're all going to Dubuque for their break) "Finishing my dissertation." "Oh! What's it called?" At this point, I forget what my diss is called. I stare at the ceiling and make up something, unfortunately not coming up with a better title than the one with which I'm currently stuck.

Right. JJC, you want to give us a sneak preview on your animal stuff? If you want bib, and I can't give you more than you need, then clearly I'm not yet ready to defend.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

Are you kidding Karl? You've given me so much bibliography I'm surfeiting on it. The editors of the collection won't let me add more -- the essay needs to be lean and mean. Like a cannibalistic luminiscent rabbit (see comments to previous post). Anyway, most of the essay has appeared in the blog already.

Glauk: that is why you are destined to become an academic.

Glaukôpis said...

Well, to be fair, I'm going to "whoop it up" in Paris for two days after the first draft of my thesis is done.

But the "whooping it up" will be in museums, so that's sort of work-related, right??! (Yeah, I've just booked the tickets, and I'm already feeling guilt. :-P)