All clear

I just now submitted the very last batch of grades for fall semester, which means I have a respite from teaching until after the New Year, when the next round of online classes begins, setting the whole cycle in motion once again. But right now and for the next week, I’m all clear from teaching and grading: the closest thing to a sabbatical my year-round, multi-institutional teaching schedule ever allows.

I’m looking forward to writing more substantial posts again: anything more than the short picture-posts I’ve been slapping up these past few busy weeks. But anything so ambitious will wait until tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. In the immediate Now, doing anything offline sounds better than spending a single minute more in front of my laptop trying to say Anything Meaningful. Perhaps that’s why this image of an empty, afternoon-sunlit bar is one of my favorite images from yesterday’s Christmas walk in Boston’s South End, the glint of liquor bottles hinting toward a bright country beyond my gradebook.