The higher Nilus swells, the more it promises (...)

MARK ANTONY
[To OCTAVIUS CAESAR]
Thus do they, sir: they take
the flow o' the Nile
By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,
The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes to harvest.

LEPIDUS
You've strange serpents there.

MARK ANTONY
Ay, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS
Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.

MARK ANTONY
They are so.

POMPEY
Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus!

LEPIDUS
I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.

TFI. Christmas party about to begin. The gin flowing nicely in these early stages, and with it a return to the traditional Friday reliance on Master Shakespeare seems apt. Recall this time last year, and so let's tread carefully around such land mines even as the hold over consciousness loosens in the coming hours. Ah yes.

What else? "It's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come." The countdown is now firmly on, at last. And with it the sadness that comes with any change, any departure, I suppose, but such is the way of the world. For I have stared long enough out these windows at the interior of the harbour, and long to set sail in the opposite direction. To renew, in a very real sense, the sensations and callings of that time five years ago when the end of law school approached and the world seemed limitless. So it does again, especially after such a year as this. Such a year of magical traveling as this. Oh oh oh. "Five years have past; five summers, with the length of five long winters! and again..." And the tears of it are wet.

Yes. Go join the fleeting cackle of celebrations. And enjoy the aspects of this life that you are shortly giving up. The future nights and days that you are losing...