After a Departmental meeting this afternoon being the last item on the agenda for this week, at last we’ve reached the Mid-Semester Half-Term Study-Week Break. Six weeks down, six weeks to go (not including an extra week off for Easter). This coming Monday is St Patrick’s Day, a national holiday here in Ireland, and the rest of the week is free from lectures, labs and tutorials. I have two batches of computational physics tests and a particle physics assignment to grade, four examination papers to write and a graduation ceremony to attend before we return, so it’s not exactly a holiday. I plan to try to make the most of the time freed up by not having to teach to finishing writing up at least one, and possibly two, papers.
I’m glad of the arrival of this break, as I’ve been running on empty for the last several days, the general sense of fatigue exacerbated by a flare-up of the arthritis in my knees. Doctors say that there’s no reliable evidence that arthritis pain correlates with the weather, but in my case it does seem to come on when the weather changes, especially when it suddenly becomes cold or damp as it has done over the past few days. I’ll be due for another steroid shot soon, which should help, and hopefully the weather will improve over the next few weeks. Possibly. It seems to be a tradition for St Patrick’s Day to take place during inclement weather so, while I plan to go and watch the parade in Maynooth on Monday, I won’t linger outside if it’s cold. I will be taking the whole day off though.
The second half of term should be a bit easier than the first. For one thing, we have another break coming up four weeks after the resumption. Good Friday is on April 18th, so that is a holiday, as is the following week. The second 6 weeks of the Semester is therefore split 4-2 with a week off in between. Moreover, I usually only give lectures in Computational Physics for 9 or 10of the 12 teaching weeks in the Semester, after which the students will be working on the mini-projects which form part of the assessment for this module.
Anyway, it’s time to head home via the shops and buy something to eat while I watch St Pat’s versus Bohemians on the telly box. I haven’t got the energy for anything else!
In the Dark 