Holiday tidbits (1 of 4): Greetings.

Like has panned out the past several years, I got pretty much more Christmas and New Year's greetings from people who I knew at the edges of academia and resthome coworkers, than from people who went farther and "made it."

It really is amazing how people who manage to forge a path in that world become incredibly self-absorbed.

It's like my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the brother of the brother-sister pair) has said (in so many words), "They're such awful people, I don't know why I spent so much time trying to fit in with them."