One week of the semester done, now to march on into the second. Unfortunately, every week has to have a worst day, and this semester it’s Wednesday. I’ve got back-to-back lecture and lab this afternoon, which means I’m going to have to talk non-stop for about 3 hours, and that means I plan to go home and sit in sweet silence this evening. Expect occasional imprecations hurled at Wotan in the future.
You know what else is annoying about Wednesday? We get three and even four day weekends now and then, and the workdays that get wiped out are usually a Friday or Monday, or even a Thursday (Thanksgiving!) or a Tuesday (Fall break!), but Wednesdays are always inviolate, standing alone and untouched. It’s going to be a whole semester of Wednesdays, undefeated, until 8 December.
I always cancel any Wednesday afternoon class the day before Thanksgiving weekend.
Back when I was a Park Ranger, I found myself, one weekend, assigned, for the entire day (1/2 hour lunch in there somewhere) at a steam locomotive that had been cut open. And because the sectioned steam locomotive is right next to the place where the short train rides board, I found myself giving an almost continuous programme regarding ‘how a steam locomotive works’ for an audience that kept flowing past me very slowly.
I, of course, have had lots of practice (when I was in first grade, my report card included a note that “Oggie is very verbal”) in being very verbal, so . . .
I understand. If you are not used to it, it ain’t easy. And getting older doesn’t make it easier.
Options:
— Become a Wodenist and declare every Wednesday sacred. Easy and remarkably effective.
— This year, Yom Kippur is Wednesday, October 5. Atonement party!
— All Souls Day is Wednesday, November 2. Those souls aren’t going to pray for themselves, you know (because they don’t exist).
— Looking ahead, Ash Wednesday is a guaranteed win for the spring semester every year. Also, Raksha Bandhan will be Wednesday, August 30 next year.
You can totally make that work. Just a bit of Catholic-Jewish-Hindu syncretism for the next year or so would do it, or there’s always Wodenism of course.
(The winter solstice this year and summer solstice next year will also be Wednesdays, but those are less helpful.)
This needs to be done while banging a gong. The process is known as a Wotan Clang.
Wotan… and Ukko.
If you are a Ankh-Morpork Golem, you can announce pretty any day you want is a holy day, there is no one alive that remembers the religions that existed when the golems were made.
.
“talk non-stop for three hours”.
Slip out in an orthogonal time dimension for a break.
September first is WWII start day, maybe the opposite of a holy day if there is such a thing.
Hey, just quit my job at my college. Time to actually live what’s left, says I. And you?
PZ, it should be easy to get rid of Wodansdays. Just have every free friday’s schedule move to the next non-free monday or tuesday, then any free monday to the next tuesday, and so on. It would mean a very (I’d say undulating) agenda, and a lot of meetings convincing your (alledgadly) stoopid administrators.
I can think of other scenarios.
^allegedly
Completely off topic, but did PZ see the college rankings from Washington Monthly?
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2022-college-guide/liberal-arts/