Today was the very last day of lecture. It wasn’t even me lecturing — the students were doing presentations on ethics and and genetics. They were all very good! One of the virtues of working at a liberal arts university is that our students are good at comprehending and presenting their ideas.
I’m not going to be lecturing at anyone until mid-January 2026! That does feel good.
I’m not quite done, though. I have one lab section left, in which I’m just going to go through and make suggestions for their final lab report. Tomorrow morning will be spent going through all the papers and records for my 3 courses, so I can get their final grades together. Friday is all about grading those lab reports, and Saturday is about assembling a final exam that will be graded electronically. Then, with any luck, my summer break and sabbatical begin on Cinco de Mayo, and the university can just fade away for a little while as I spend my days frolicking with spiders.
PZ, that’s great. Now take a few deep breaths and then go finish breeding and training your army of huge mutant spiders so you can do more than ‘write a strong letter’ like snoozing schumer.
P.S. Thanks for all the great info you provide and thanks for putting up with all us deranged commenters.
I don’t presume that evodevo book will see the light of day on this sabbatical either.
From my perspective, you’re a workaholic, PZ.
But all good. Luck be with ya.
May you decompress and prepare for the inevitable retirement.
If you have no lectures, it is time to figure out how to squeeze in a journey to England in the autumn so you can participate in the very last QED conference!