Panicky Students

Today is the first day of the last week of classes for my students and me. By this time next week I will have done at least two days of getting up and looking at the mountain of papers I've collected and taking a hunk off of it (kinda like taking a big slice of roast beef off of a, well, pile of roast beef) and reading, reading, reading.

But I can't complain, even though I just did. For all of the nervous wreck inducing moments of this tenure semester, my classes have been outstanding. No, not everybody's getting an A, but the students I've taught this semester have been a pleasure, have been gracious and fun and have put up with my jokes. Not bad.

Gee, I wish the semester would never end -- psych!

In other news, I found a must have book for this summer. It is:
“I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears,” by Jag Bhalla, with drawings by Julia Suits (National Geographic Books; paperback, $13), surveys idioms from around the world. The title is a Russian idiom, which we express in English as “I’m not pulling your leg.” The German idiom for “to have a hangdog look” is to stand like a watered poodle (now also applicable to Portuguese water dogs). The idiom for craziness, in English “around the bend,” is in French to have a spider on the ceiling, in Spanish to have mambo in the head, in Japanese to wrestle alone. In this amusing look at cultural similarities, what we call “a chip on the shoulder” the Italians call a fly on the nose, and what we call “nervous in the Service” is in Spanish like a crocodile in a wallet factory.

Sounds like fun, aye?
Happy Monday
Nick, shear intelligunce, sure!