Breathe In… Breathe out

Classes are done. Now we’re in the “lull” period of reading days (i.e. students doing the research they should have been doing for weeks, panicking a little, and not having time for interlibrary loan… Meanwhile we stay open until 3am and have added reference hours). Finals run Saturday through Monday. And then we’re DONE.

To celebrate that we’ve made it this far, we set up an ice cream sundae bar outside the library last night from 9 to 10 and served gallons and gallons of ice cream (I believe 7 gallons? maybe 8?) to crowds of students. And I have to say, it was the best thing we could have done, both for the students and for ourselves. Students got ice cream (what’s bad about that?) and we got to do something really fun after a long and very stressful day. I started the night grumpy and over-tired, but when I went home I’d almost completely decompressed and could go to bed without dwelling and stewing about the horrible day we’d had. (We even ended up doing a few impromptu research consultations over ice cream, which was interesting and rather unexpected.)

So this weekend will be busy, filled with extra reference shifts and polishing off a manuscript that’s due. But then I hope to figure out what “normal” life looks like, again (and maybe get to some of the blog posts I’ve been meaning to write over the course of the last month and a half).