Seasonal Tidings of Not-Misery

In many ways, I live a blessed life. I'm healthy, I love my wife, my marriage is stable, we have economic and emotional security, my kids show every sign of turning out to be good people. I'm an American in the early 21st century, meaning that it's exceeding unlikely that my government is about to decide to kill me and everyone like me but might decide to take a little more of my money to give to other people. I like my job, my job seems to like me and what passes as oppression among my colleagues is that, four years from now, the college might decide not to give me a job for life but rather to only give me a terminal year of employment to find another job. Taking the long view I'm in the top 1% of the 1% of the 1% of everyone who ever lived.

First world people look at my problems and say, "Dude! Please!"

All of which is a preface to noting that grading really sucks.

Over the holiday season and all of next year, may your biggest problems be no bigger than mine, which is to say -- in the context of human experience -- nothing much at all.