I find my hair braids very well. It’s now at a good length for it, and it holds to it incredibly well with minimal frizzing, which is the important part. I took a picture of my braided hair yesterday and might put it up here if I have the brain cells for it. Therefore, probably not. I spent all of last night grading papers and will probably spend a portion of tonight doing the same.

The large concrete planters outside my window are full of bizarre-looking dead flowers. It’s almost pretty–the composition of curled purple leaves carpeting the ground around it, the green stems that fade into black hanging down around the mouth of the grey cauldron and the stalks of red dragon’s tongues whose tips retain color but whose stems leading up are blackened and shrunken in like a wick leading up to a dying flame. I should take a picture. But I’ll forget.

My feet ache. My throat hurts. I hate this grey weather which makes my joints buckle and clench. Stupid fall. Everything’s dying and so is my mood.

I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving break. I asked one of my French classes why the French don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and they didn’t know. It took them far too long to figure it out too. Everyone needs a break. I’m going to be really excited to hit LGT and see the in-laws for a few days. I’m sure the husband’s looking forward to it too.

Half happy hour? What an odd turn-of-phrase. I wonder what they meant by it. Is it a half-hour of happy hour? Is it half the price of happy hour? Is it half the exuberance usually spent by bar-goers at the same time? Unfortunately, I have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with that one, but I do know it wouldn’t be hyphenated in any way unless they meant for people to be half-happy. It would only be hyphenated if it in turn qualified another noun like half-happy-hour Thursdays. Those damned hyphenated adjectives and compound adjectives. Maybe I’ll devote a TKT to it. If I think about it. Who knows.

Well, I have to go teach again. Some lunch break. I’ll finish off the Mountain Dew I’ve been nursing since this morning, switch my books out and then be back in class again. I never eat. I should probably stop calling it my lunch hour and call it my half-happy hour because I’m halfway happy to be out of class yet not off campus. It’s so friggin’ grey outside. It’s more like one-hundredth-happy hour.