Sabbath

My first go-round in grad school (at Cornell), I had a classmate who was an Orthodox Jew. As such, he didn't do any studying on the Sabbath. I asked him once how he managed that since the rest of us were pretty tapped out working 7 days a week. He replied that it was a blessing. He was commanded to take a day off every week. He didn't stress over it because it wasn't negotiable. As a result, he got a truly restful day every week. Needless to say, he poured everything he had into the other six. He has a PhD now. I don't.

I've loosely practiced taking a day off a week before, but I've decided I'm going to be rather strict about it while I'm pursuing my degree. I need the break. My family needs the break. I'll just have to work harder the other six days. I don't really have a problem with that.

There is still the question of which day to take off. The traditional Jewish Sabbath is sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. For Lenten observance, I've always used sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. That could get a little messy with grad school work, though. Too much temptation to switch things around a bit in a pinch; especially if I had something important due on Monday. So, I think I'll just take Saturdays off completely. Simple, easy to enforce, and not likely to result in a missed assignment.