Holiday break?

The semester was officially over yesterday at 1:28 pm when the last grades were posted, and with the reliability of the seasons, one of the first people the Phactor encountered off campus said, "Wish I got as long a break as you guys do." OK it's break from teaching, but a break? Even before the grades were posted an email arrived from a colleague, a manuscript we submitted earlier this year was accepted for publication, except for the matter of revisions, good revisions, but still considerable revision, and please have it done by the end of January. This gets even better because the Phactor has to finish a review of a manuscript ASAP delayed by final exams and grading. Seeds collected about a month ago will need to be counted and placed into a cold treatment to set up a germination trial in a couple of months. A student has been working on a research project and the data needs to be analyzed, and my colleague in crime reminded me of our own fall research data, and the need to figure out what it all means because the deadline for submitting an abstract for national meetings taking place next summer will be in February or March. A greeting card from my book editor basically said, "Get the damned book done." None of this has anything to do with getting ready for the next semester's teaching. So, yes, the Phactor really wishes he got a break. What's this? Oh, no, maintenance schedule for our building just hit the in-box, so work around the outages people. It won't matter cause the faculty are all on break. Ah, well, it's what we get all those fantastic salaries for doing (Is there an emoticon for dripping with sarcasm?).