Reviving a tradition

I didn't do it this fall, but for a few semesters in the past, I started off the new semester with one of my favorite pieces of music (which is also appropriate to the situation): Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture"

Here's a new-ish version of it, by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra:



All my classes "made." It was worrisome for a while on the intro class; it's an 8 am section, enrollment in general is down and 8 am classes can be a tough sell at the best of times. But a couple last-minute adds coupled with permission from the dean, and I've got the classes I wanted to teach for this semester.

This will be a much less stressful schedule than last semester: my first class MWF is at 11 am, which, if I can make myself be disciplined, means a couple potential hours each of those days of writing time on this manuscript (I've already been working on it some this morning). And hopefully, later on, reading time, to consider summer research.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I have lectures at 8 am and 11 am. I do teach three afternoon labs (M, W, and Th), but at least they are all supposed to be done by 3 pm - if the intro class hadn't made, I would have been taking on late-afternoon labs (currently covered by "staff" - probably the grad students or adjuncts) and that would have been sad.