I had a couple friends (people not in academia) ask me "So what are you going to do now, since you've received tenure and promotion?"

My first impulse was to riff on that old ad, "{famous football player guy} what are you going to do now that you've won the Superbowl?" "I'm goin' to Disneyland!"

But that is not an accurate picture of what it is like, at all.

Rather more, it's like the old story about the young novice who seeks out the wise sage. He finds the man in his garden. And he asks: "Oh, wise master, what did you do before you found Enlightenment?" And the sage replied: "I chopped wood and carried water." And the novice asked: "And what did you do after you found Enlightenment?" And the sage replied: "I chopped wood and carried water."


only in my case, substitute "teaching classes, doing research, and writing grants".

That said, I am going to celebrate a tiny little bit. Next Thursday,a friend and colleague of mine and I are taking the day to visit some of the Texas prairies. And sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to go on a shopping trip to McKinney. (My celebrations may be small, but they still are celebrations to me.)

Got a bit more done on the "That 70s sock;" I'm up to the toe decreases. I'm doing a round-toe on this; it's my favorite toe shaping (like the semicolon is my favorite punctuation mark) and it looks good on the striping or patterning yarns.