Thanksgiving Blues

I'm sitting here in my office on the day before Thanksgiving--nominally a teaching day--and this campus is EMPTY. As empty as if someone suddenly decided to call off all classes and forgot to tell me. Most of my colleagues, I know, cancelled their classes; my students, whether their classes were cancelled or not, casually announced to me weeks ago that they'd be gone all week long regardless. My child got the entire week off from school.

So is this something new? This is the first year I've seen anything like this on the SDSU campus. Students have always been present Thanksgiving week. I've always strongly suspected that the reason students stick around is because this is largely a commuter campus, and they're eating in town anyway--but that meant I could count on them to be here.

But perhaps that has all changed?

Anyway, all I can say is that it is creepy here, and I'd rather like to go home.