Spring Break (?)

This week is our Spring Break.  All last week I was both looking forward to it and dreading it.  On one hand it is so nice to get a break from having to do so much all the time and to get a chance to catch up.  But on the other hand there is so much stuff that I want/need to get done this week; it is overwhelming.  Unfortunately Thursday morning I woke up feeling like I was getting sick, then after a blah day at work I basically went home to hibernate in the hopes of not getting sick.  I came to work briefly on Friday to hear the full faculty vote on the new astronomy major.  There was absolutely no discussion and it passed!  (There was really inane discussion about it at the Academic Senate meeting last week, but it passed there too.)  So the next step is for the Provost to officially approve it and for us to send it to the SUNY system.  Add that paperwork to the list of things I should do over Spring Break.  Anyway, other than that I have basically been sitting on my couch trying to drink fluids and eat healthy things in the attempt to thwart this cold.  Unfortunately the result is that I seem to be in limbo-land of always feeling like I am about to get sick and any exertion will put me over the edge.  I was going to proclaim my weekend of hibernation a success but Monday morning I woke up feeling worse than ever.  After staying in bed reading and napping until about 1:00 today I might be ready to say that I am on the mend.  I came in to work, at least.  I actually am not sure which is worse; having a full on cold for two days, or sitting around trying to avoid really getting sick but still feeling icky for longer than that.  Oh well.  And I am realizing that this illness is probably a result of my traipsing about in the snow last weekend.  Sigh.  This has randomly had me thinking about how throughout history a spell in wet cold weather could actually be a nearly deadly experience.  Or at least that's what my 19th century British fiction tells me.  I don't really understand why they didn't get better by just lying in bed for a while.   

The end result is that my Spring Break is even shorter now and I still have so much to do!  One of the more fun, but time consuming, things on the to do list is setting up the new observatory.  As I said, the telescope recently became available and was actually just delivered.  I opened the box today and it is very beautiful.  The pier was also installed this morning, so now everything is accounted for.  As a result I have succumbed to the pressures and agreed to set a date for the dedication ceremony/grand opening.  This makes me a little bit nervous since it isn't set up yet, but it is good to have a deadline, I suppose.  This afternoon I went out there with a coworker for muscle and we successfully (I think) mounted the mount onto the pier .  It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out which way to point it.  Tomorrow we go back to try to put the telescope onto the mount!  Actually attaching things is easier than I thought, but I think the electronics and computer interface will be the hard part.  So this is probably going to take up the remainder of my Spring Break.  It is fun, but was not previously at the top of my priority list!

I do have one fun activity planned for this week, which I will tell you all about later...