I could easily finish the above sentence in 10 different ways right now. I’ve been sick for a week, I’ve started to become short tempered and frustrated in class, my email inbox is backed up etc. etc.. Though I could complain that my last day of class was December 21st, I am so excited to be heading home tomorrow and to be finally getting that break.

But you really know you need a break when… you start to catch students drinking in your dreams. I have been very busy in my dreams the past week – in addition to teaching a chemistry class (which is not something I do in my waking life) I have caught three different students in two separate dreams drinking. Now, I’m not all that surprised that students pop up in my dreams – I’ve heard that you dream about whatever you were thinking about right before you went to sleep, and apart from having an all consuming job that I think about pretty much 24-7, I tend to grade right before I go to sleep (which explains why I would have had a few students in mind as I drifted off to sleep). But I am surprised that I caught them drinking, because thankfully that’s something I’ve never had to do in real life, nor is it something I think about often. At the risk of sounding like a total creep, I mentioned this to one of the dream-drinkers and he had the best comeback, delivered with the goofiest grin: “Sir, that must have been a dream because that’s so far from reality.”

I’m looking forward to a week and a half full of dreams filled with queso, family, tap water, exercising, friends and relaxing, which sounds a lot more restful than being on the lookout for underage drinking all night.