It begins ...

[d_aulnoy]

Today, my friends, is a day that juxtaposes sadness and hope ... today is the first day of the new term. However, *my* first day isn't till tomorrow, so, life is good for another twelve hours or so. Not that I'm not looking forward to classes, mind: just that, well, as anyone who knows me will be quite happy to tell, I'm not much of a morning person. Teaching in the morning = decapitated students. On the upside, today I was actually semi-productive (I think that my week of whinging, moaning, drinking, and procrastinating managed to sweat any break-up-related angst out of my system). So, I finished updating my syllabus, in the nick of time; I went to the office to beg for more work (and was crually, cruelly denied, though I'm still trying to affect the status of that decision); found lovely, lovely things in my mail-box, including books to be reviews by Jane Yolen and one absolutely gorgeous academic text on fairy tales (which normally goes for $85 ... the mind boggles); and found a mystery. Someone very nice left me a review of A.S. Byatt's work. Signed what could be "Jon" or "John." This normally wouldn't be a problem, except that the only two people who I know who go by names resembling the signature have eerily similar messy handwriting. So, who do I thank? The fellow grad. student/friend or the professor/mentor? Decisions, decisions. And now, I am capping of my accomplishments by updating, and then writing reviews of the new books. Ah, satisfaction ....