"Vacation" [slightly modified from dictionary.com ]

n.

1. A period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation, especially one with pay granted to an employee.
2. A holiday.
3. A fixed period of holidays, especially one during which a school, court, or business suspends activities.

Yeah, right.

Approximate schedule for this week, the first week of "vacation":

27 December
am: work on revisions of co-authored article for resubmission.
pm: grade at least six final exams from grad class, and finalize semester grades for those students.

28 December
am: grade at least eight final exams from grad class, and finalize semester grades for those students.
pm: work on reading through immense stack of material that needs to be discussed in opening and closing chapters of book manuscript.

29 December
am: grade remaining (at least eight) final exams from grad class, and finalize semester grades for those students. Submit final grades for that course.
pm: continue to work on reading through immense stack of material that needs to be discussed in opening and closing chapters of book manuscript.

30 December
am: grade at least six final exams from undergrad class, and finalize semester grades for those students.
pm: continue to work on reading through immense stack of material that needs to be discussed in opening and closing chapters of book manuscript.

31 December
am: grade at least six final exams from undergrad class, and finalize semester grades for those students.
pm: maybe read a bit; spend time with family for New Year's Eve.

1 January
clean office; work on throwing out excess crap in house, only some of which is directly due to Christmas gifts received; spend some family time with wife&kids.

2 January
am: church.
pm: grade remaining final exams from undergrad class, and finalize semester grades for those students. Submit final grades for that course. Also take care of any other lingering grading (independent studies, internship papers, etc.) and submit those grades. Finally be finished with semester two-plus weeks after it ends.

The next week before classes start up again needs to be spent working on the first and last chapters of my book, revising the rest of the ms. to make it conform to those chapters and their slight reframing of the argument to accord with what the press' board of directors wanted me to do, finalizing syllabi for Spring courses, and doing my bit of another co-authored piece that is also due mid-January -- the same time as the final book ms. is due.

I think that I would like to have "a period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation." [Of course, in my case -- as for many academics, I'd venture -- such a period would involve thinking and reading in directions that I wanted to instead of in directions that I had to or was obligated to.] Maybe after I get tenure? Please?

[Posted with ecto]  ¶ 12/27/2004 10:01:00 AM