There's only one thing more fun than getting your own good job, and that's seeing your friends get good jobs. Both of my poet colleagues for this year have now secured plum positions for next year (and, deo volante, for many years thereafter). And I am so pleased. And their future students and colleagues are so lucky.

This time of year is cruel and terrible in academia. It's cruel and terrible because so many demonstrably excellent and deserving people emerge at the end of a six-month process of putting their lives on hold and have virtually nothing to show for it. I hate that. I think that any of us with our souls still intact must hate that. I breathe a sigh of relief for every person I know who comes out okay at the end of a market cycle. I breathe a prayer of hope and strength for those who may now be getting ready to wait until September to try again.

And for now I'm back to work on my own bid for next year's new berth. My Freudian typo: next year's new birth. Yes--that too, almost without question.

(Oh yeah, and that picture? Yesterday, 7:45 p.m. Thanks, daylight saving time!)