GRADES ARE DONE. I may be able to pick up the slack for those academic webloggers now heading into final exams, on the other hand a big can of Foster's sounds like a plan. It's been kind of a stressful semester, but if the kids are keeping me busy with good questions, that's good stress. The introductory economics class lived up to the encouraging note on which they began, and the policy class made progress from where they began.

New academics: savor such semesters. There will be variations in classes. Enjoy the good ones, and keep working the challenging ones.

It helps that the fall sports teams acquitted themselves well and no administrators or faculty members made national spectacles of themselves.