The coffee shop was closed. Because even though today is a regular class day, and Thanksgiving break starts tomorrow, the campus starts shutting down today.

That's just wrong.

It is . . . not unlike the fact that even though the university is open next Wednesday, the buses aren't running.

This would be a problem - except that I have vacation and can take the day off.

I know we had classes some days of Thanksgiving week; I can't quite remember, but I think it was just Monday and Tuesday. Lots of people skipped those days and left Friday after class or Saturday to go home for the whole week, especially people who lived far enough away to fly home. I think I stuck around for classes and headed home Tuesday afternoon, since my parents only lived an hour away.

I'm planning on taking next week off - but I have found myself agreeing to a one hour project here and there. It isn't like I'm going anywhere or even cooking a big meal...just going for a staycation.

We've got the full week off for Thanksgiving, but most students leave sometime Friday. I caused panic in my classrooms by telling my students that they would have a quiz today, just like they do every Friday. (I even specifically said on the syllabus that there would be a quiz the Friday before Thanksgiving.) I'm sure I'm going to be docked some points in my student evaluations for this, but since I'm not going to be teaching here next year, I don't really care.

At Marquette the day before or after a holiday counted as missing three classes. Which mattered because with four or more absences the professor could deregister you from their class.

At Marquette the day before or after a holiday counted as missing three classes. Which mattered because with four or more absences the professor could deregister you from their class.

We don't have that kind of power here. We can't even enforce prerequisites. (Seriously. The computer registration system isn't set up to check whether a student has taken all the prerequisites before allowing them to register for a class. If a professor wants to, they can go through the list, individually check each student's transcript, and deregister the ones who don't have the prerequisites, but there's nothing preventing those students from just registering again. Also, only professors have that power -- for classes taught by non-tenure-track faculty, there's nothing we can do.)

Of course. Guy with hyuuge shoulders in the middle seat. Feel bad for the lady in the window.

3 hr flight....

Daniel Handler is matching all donations to We Need Diverse Books today, up to $100,000. [link]