Today I recorded my last chapel talk of the quarter.  Mind you, I hadn’t planned on it happening today.  It was lunch time when a co-worker reminded me that next week was the last week of the quarter.  That plus the fact that I record chapel talks a week in advance has obviously messed with my sense of time.  And so it goes.

It’s a sobering thing to realize that we are a week-and-a-half out from the end of the first quarter.  On one hand, it’s flown by.  On another, the days have just been long.  My students have done a great job hanging in there (as best as I can tell).  It will be interesting to actually meet students face to face later this week (some, not many) and then next quarter (all of them, but never at the same time).  I’ll be curious to see how dynamics change, such as they were.

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Today, of course, marks the birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.  It was fun to be reminded of that this morning.  When you’re young, you tend to feel like Frodo, I suppose.  But the older you get?  Definitely Bilbo: all you want to do is see mountains again and write your book.  Here’s a favorite clip from The Fellowship of the Ring directed by Peter Jackson.  Sad to remember that Ian Holm has passed just over three months ago.  A great scene.