Going Dark, originally uploaded by MarkEJohnson.

Today was the day … shortly after 5 p.m., I pulled the last images off the server, shut everything down, killed the lights and pulled the door shut: the Photojournalism Lab is closed for the year, my teaching wrapped up until January.

As I was driving home, my boss called me, which was a little odd as we’d talked earlier in the day about a bunch of different things. He wanted to let me know right away that the President of the University of Georgia had signed off on my promotion to Senior Lecturer. Which is … cool.

Also, a little daunting as it means I’ve held a job long enough to get a promotion … it’s been a long time since that’s happened. Because, well … when this semester wraps up I’ll have worked here for more than twice as long as I worked anywhere else. In my life.

And I’ve only been here for five and a half years.

Of course, the promotion doesn’t go into effect until August when my contract cycles around again. And, with the current budget, there’s no raise involved.

Seven kids finished the emphasis today, five of them will don the funny gowns later this week and wander off into the "real world." Some are scared–it’s a hard time to enter the workforce. But they’re all prepared, they’ve proven to me they can think and, really, that’s the best thing I can bring out in them. Everything else comes after that.

Kind of a good day on the work front.