SJBloguary

January at my small liberal arts institution means nothing on the schedule: it's Interterm, and the students are off either being productive or sitting around their parents' houses watching 6 weeks worth of "My Sweet 16" on MTV (I presume). So what does the professorate do?

I can only speak for myself, but I'm pitched somewhere between the kind of procrastination and calculated idle that seems familiar, and doing a bunch of random things that were never, ever going to get done during the semester. To date I have:

• Thought about writing a book.
• Cross-country skied.
• Learned how to set the timer and record off Spanish Television on my office DVR.
• Driven golf balls. Twice!
  
• Joined Skype and videoconferenced.
• Played cribbage.
  
• Sifted through a semester's worth of memos, bills and desk detritus.
• Seen a colleague wander through our building in a T-shirt, red Wisconsin sweatpants, socks and flip-flops.
• Begun (and hope to finish) reading Sophie's Choice, working on knitting a pillow and organizing the stuff in my stuff closet.
• Gotten my two syllabi, course readers, streaming video requests, room assignments and book orders done for next semester. And written most of a paper I'm giving in March.
• Gone to two yoga classes, one of which actually did not make me want to throttle the new-agey instructor with a hemp rope.
  
• Made, participated in the making of, or participated in the eating of (or all of the above) jambalaya, tortilla española, minestrone soup, paella and carnitas.

And the month's not over!