Another thing to add to the list of stuff that makes me happy:

this afternoon, walking up to the President's house (he has a reception every December for current and retired faculty and staff) and as I got close to the house, hearing the University Chorale singing seasonal songs. And as I walked through the chilly-but-not-uncomfortable air (cold enough to need a sweater but not so cold as to need a coat), I thought this, this is why I stayed in academia.

All of it. The sense of community. The feeling of the university being more-or-less a selfcontained unit. The seeing people from other departments and being greeted cordially. The fact that the arts are living and breathing on the campus. The old brick buildings in the slanting gold afternoon light, with a few bright leaves still on the trees. Being able to talk with deans and fellow professors and with the campus horticulturalist and the receptionist from the health center and being treated as an equal by all and having something to talk to all of them about. And laughing with one of my colleagues and the horticulturalist over some crazy scheme one of us proposed, and each of us taking it and running with it and making it more and more ridiculous by the moment, and just feeling that here is a group of people who grok who I am, who appreciate my humor and my intelligence, and who are willing to take the time to sit and eat food (well, it's free food, and if anything will get an academic out of his or her office, it's free food, but still) and talk and laugh and greet people you've not seen for a few weeks. And to say, "you know, I really need to go, I've got grading I must do" but still hanging around to talk because you really don't want to grade, the grading will wait, and you don't see all of these people on a regular basis, or at least not in a casual setting where you can talk about other things than business at hand.

and almost every day this week will have one of those events: tomorrow is the we're-not-calling-it-a-baby-shower, and Wednesday is my college's luncheon, and Thursday is AAUW. Friday there is nothing but that is okay because it's the last day of classes and if all goes well I can leave after my last class, at noon, and go home and take a couple blessèd hours and clean house and then relax and listen to music and read or knit before exam week gears up.

And next week is Exam Week, but it's also Feast of Finger Foods (a departmental tradition) and CWF Christmas Party, and getting ready for my travels, and seeing the semester wind down.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not ecstatic for the end, I'm not crossing days off on the calendar. There are students I will miss having in class - students who are funny and who ask good questions and who show they're interested. And it will be farewell to Biostats (my favorite class to teach) for another year. But it's also nice to see the change in the schedule, and to have the cycling 'round again of the season with its usual traditions, the round of parties, the things to go and do and see and enjoy.

One thing I kind of miss in the more low-church traditions of the Reform churches is that the liturgical year isn't really celebrated. There isn't the explicit point made of "now we are in Advent so the linens are purple; when we are in Ordinary Time they will be green." I'm not even sure that Ordinary Time is recognized as a concept outside of the more Orthodox churches. But I like that cyclic quality. I like feeling that something familiar is coming around again. I think for me it's that I get so buffeted by change - even though what change I experience in my life is minimal compared to most people - that I like having the familiarity of a yearly round to come back to, to center myself. (I wonder if some Protestant denominations downplay the liturgical year because it seems somewhat pagan to them*? Most of the Neo-Pagans I have known have very much emphasized the fact that in their belief system, time has a cyclical nature that comes back around on itself every year. I have to admit I like that, the idea of time turning back on itself and things happening again the way they happened before.

*Or maybe more "Popish." One thing that surprises me about the South is that there are still some pockets of somewhat anti-Catholic feeling. Or if not exactly "anti," sort of a "you know, they're not like us" whispered behind a hand)