My Holiday Absence

With the Holiday crush of activity, I found myself overwhelmed with work and Christmas preparations. Add a trip back home to the Midwest and there were few opportunities to actually sit down collect any thoughts, not to mention posting them. It was as if the last three weeks happened in one.

The schedule for my students rendered the week before Christmas as the middle of the quarter. This meant that I needed to produce the dreaded progress report for the second quarter. It is not exactly a nice Christmas present for any of them. Understanding this, I tried to give everyone an opportunity to submit any outstanding work and resubmit anything with which they were unhappy. Unlike most teachers, I generally have a fairly liberal redo policy. In my prior teaching stints it was never a problem. I generally issue a warning that I do not want people waiting until the last minute to resubmit their work. However, this time I got deluged with all kinds of redone assignments. It was so problematic I nixed the policy altogether in one class. Nevertheless, I was grading a mountain of work in preparation for the reports.

No sooner had I found the bottom of the stack when I needed get my things together for the weeklong trip to Chicago. Aside from the general travel items, I had a boat load of gifts to be distributed to friends and family. The combined loads from Ali, Keri, and me nearly left us without room to sit in the rental car. That’s right we drove the 1000 miles from Boston to Chicago. Three of us and the dog, Zerbert, headed West on a non-stop nineteen hour road trip. Since I had to work the 23rd, we did not arrive until the afternoon of Christmas Eve. From that point it was a full Holiday fervor.

Before I could catch my breath, we were back at work in Boston as though we had never left. The exception to this is that I am exhausted and sick. It seems my allergies to dust and cats were more aggravated then I thought in my vacation accommodations. All this has lead to one of my seasonal sinus infections. I can’t seem to get through a year without getting at east two. I guess this is number one for 2005.

Hopefully, I’ll have the stamina to touch on the Holidays in greater depth in future. Plus, Ali is requesting a kind of year in pictures, full of photographic highlights that were not previously posted. We shall see.

2 thoughts on “My Holiday Absence

  1. Hi Fred,

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I know the day is almost over but this was the most convenient time to get on the computer. Best wishes to you for a great year. Thanks again for the wine and basket container. We’re on our way to Raleigh, N.C. next week for five days for a little R&R.; Pam and Mike had their pre-drywall walk through yesterday and everything checked out okay. THey have a closing date of March 2nd so we’ll see. Take care and say “hi” to Ali.

    Love, Mrs. “E”

  2. Hey, this posting has been up there for a long time. Where is that year in pictures you promised us? Don’t you have any good Christmas or Birthday pictures? You can’t get us hooked on reading your updates every week or two, and then drop off for a month at a time!

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