Administry

I'm administering a midterm to my English 380 students right now. It has already been a long morning and I'm getting antsy, troubled by the prospect of many stressful hours ahead in my workday. I recently noticed that the small, green copy of the New Testament -- they're everywhere on campus these days -- that I remarked on during last class was still sitting on the teacher's desk. So I picked it up and turned to a random passage in the hope that it would help me in my time of need. This is where I landed:

Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

That's from the Book of Hebrews, 11:34-35. And boy did it make me feel better! I had forgotten that The Bible sometimes reads like the scenario for a B-movie in the hybrid horror-science fiction category.

Banquished

I am so tired. I still have hundreds of things I need to do, but they will have to wait until morning. I feel like some low-grade 1960s aesthete recovering from a week of shooting up speed. Or at least an 1980s para-aesthete coming down off two days of snorting speed. Or maybe just a 2000s anaesthete paying the price for one too many cups of coffee. Any way you slice it, though, I need to hit the futon. Maybe I'll put on some European movie to dream by.