At seven o'clock this morning, with the sun still behind renaissance clouds, we were on the road to work. For myself, I was to school work and my first final exam of this semester. I have it here beside me all printed in black and white with an acceptably and maybe appropriately formidable font across the top, which says:

ENGLISH 403
SHAKESPEARE: THE EARLY WORKS
FINAL EXAM

Oh, yes, my friends, you should be scared. I can feel no malice towards my Professor. I can feel no malice towards these few sheets of innocent printer paper on which happened to be marked my sentence. I cannot even grumble at the BLT because he snores . . . erm sings. *I* am relieved!

There are wreaths over some of the doorways I walk past on my way here. Women chatting in the caffe bar exchange recipes for Christmas cookies. Christmas music bounces gleefully from stereos!

This morning I witnessed someone else's childhood memory of a Christmas. Two Someone-Elses'. Turning the corner outside our house we drove by a man walking with two small children. It is a holiday here (so there is no school today), but such small children out already at such an early time; and in the cold! I was nudged by a memory of being cold early in the morning to look at their faces. They were all grinning the same grin--all of them, not only the Short Ones--except that the children's were smeared with chocolate from the half-munched cornetti in their hands. The man, who laughed, was carrying also a pastry-bag and a leaning tower of styrofoam cups.

This all took about the space of about two seconds.

And then, when we turned out of our town onto the Road, we could look back and see snow on the mountains. Snow! White and prolly crunchy stuff, soon to be smothered in clouds. I anticipate the morning when I will stumble downstairs in my slippers to look out the window and see a layer of white over our yard, a ridge of frost on our gate, and tracks of snow on our street.

But for now, I am in a windowless room full of computers. I still have my jacket on in here because the heater ain't so great for this building. I've got two weeks of posting to catch up to (how does Cassius shape the way we think of Julius Caesar?) and a final exam to appease on top of a persuasive speech (have mercy!) and some tedious-ness-es connected with my computer class.

Can't wait for noon! I hope my courtyard is sunny. I've begun to read "Paradise Lost" and it is easy compared to Shakespeare; Book Two is scheduled to unravel today.

*grins and twirls in her swivel chair*