YAY!!! Ugh. (Yay?)

YAY:
We had a fantastic trip to Italy for our "flu-vacation." There will be several posts coming from that trip (I think I took about 300 photos!), but not this week. We both felt actual joy, something that has been a bit hard to come by recently.

Ugh:
But now we're back to work, and what a week it is. The grading period ended today, so grades are due on Monday (and comments for 150 students), meanwhile we're trying to make-up work that was supposed to happen last week and figure out how to adjust for losing a week of the semester. 3 candidates to be the new head of school are visiting this week (and we're supposed to schmooze with them), and all the Americans are supposed to team up this weekend to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the Bulgarian Faculty & Staff (which sounds like a great tradition, but just more to add to the weekly schedule). Did I mention how tired I am? Monday morning was rough, and we even came home from Italy before noon on Sunday, supposedly giving us time to rest up and get ready. Vacationing in Italy was so fun, it makes reality so...unpleasantly real.

Yay: We only have to get through 8 days of very tough schoolwork, and then it's Thanksgiving break, when we're heading to Istanbul. That will be fabulous I'm sure. After that, 3 weeks til Christmas break.

We can do this.

Stay posted for interesting stories and beautiful pictures...