It is nice to have the semester wind down earlier than the students do, I think. Even though there is the pre-holiday grading, at least it isn't a grading and teaching time. Thanksgiving is to be enjoyed!
Glad you're feeling more upbeat. Kvetching can be important -- even if you have a good job. You need to rid yourself of the bad so you can see the good. 
We don't have a fall break, either, and it's really maddening. I made a mini-one by just not going to two of my classes on Thurs...but gosh darn it I went to my Victorian class that night!
I also think there's been a rash of tiredness going around. I just _could not get up_ several times last week. At least we'll get an extra hour in a few weeks, what with that "fall back" thing.
I had half of my students missing on Thursday, too. I guess we have hit that point of the semester. Maybe time for a mental health day? I know, I know--too much to accomplish with too little time left, but how effective are we when we're feeling like this? i'm seriously considering a day off in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, I had TERRIBLE attendance on Thursday - it didn't help that we have break on M and T next week so folks wanted to take off early. I had one student who missed show up at my office to apologize for missing and explain that he hasn't had much sleep this week and he woke up that morning, turned off his alarm without realizing he'd done it, and went back to sleep, only waking up an hr into my class (10:30). He was genuinely distressed that he'd have done such a thing, poor kid. So it's definitely that time of year!
I have to say that I'm actually relieved to hear that everyone else had terrible attendance on Thursday as well! Although I know this is completely irrational, I was taking it a little bit personally. Even though I know that I've been dragging ass all week long, I nonetheless felt that the bad attendance had something to do with me . . . that my class sucked, that I was unspeakably boring, that I'm a bad professor, yadda yadda yadda.
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