It spit snow most of the weekend. More is expected today.

I have been working with my senior thesis students who are coming to the end of this process. It is wonderful -- they are all working so hard, so thoughtfully, with such intensity and dedication. Or maybe with such fear and desperation. Hard to tell. It is (at least for me, who doesn't have to actually write a thesis myself) joyous.

My friend Neena asked me the other day how it feels to know that this is the end of something -- and, in a way, the end of someone. These are my last thesis students ever. I have already taught, for example, my last Social Theory class ever. Soon I will have, again for example, my last discussion of Resistance Through Rituals, a book that I first read almost 40 years ago and that I've been discussing constantly (in one way or another) ever since. I have been a college professor for over half of my life and I have loved it. I still love it. Except, you know, when I don't. I am not sitting in a faculty meeting right now, so perhaps my view at the moment is overly rosy.

When Henry David Thoreau left his cabin at Walden Pond in the fall of 1847, he wrote in his journal, "Perhaps if I lived there much longer, I might live there forever. One would think twice before he accepted heaven on such terms."

In the meantime, Benjamin is making a film for his thesis and sent me a photo of his set for one series of shots. He has used a lot of my old sociology books as props. Even at a distance, even mostly turned away from me, I can identify every one of my dear old friends. "Look!" I want to say to ... someone, "It's Harrison White!"

It was lovely while it lasted.