Random bullets of some things

• Really enjoyed my class(es) this semester.  In one, I was a couple of minutes late about a week ago, which is very unusual, and when I came in, they said, "There she is!" and gave me a round of applause in what I'm assuming is a mocking but affectionate way.  Lots of positive comments on the class from them, too, and the feeling was certainly mutual: I really liked them.
• One minor way I liked them: they always identified themselves by name in their emails (great) whereas people from random other places will email me with entire messages like "Hey, did you get that thing I sent, and why haven't you done something with it?" without identifying the "thing" they're talking about.  This is getting into rant territory, so I'll stop there. 
• On the positive side, I've decided on a few steps for email so that this doesn't degenerate into the "I hate email" blog:
• You don't have to be the first to respond if someone sends you and several others a "please fix this" email.  In fact, if you wait it out, you might not have to respond at all.  Since I'm usually a get-it-done person on these, this was a hard lesson but a good one. And some demanding messages -- the 3rd or 4th in a row about things that have already been solved -- are just getting deleted.
• Sometimes a break makes people want to wax philosophical about ways to do things differently and how you might spend your time over the break by outlining strategic ways to accomplish them. Hence anything with phrases about planning for the future, possible scenarios, or "next year let's do this" is getting a fake autoreply that says "Great idea. You look into it, develop a plan, and report back in January." 
• Now to get back to work in the manuscript, grade some papers, and try to chip away at the Christmas to-do list.