Prolonging the inevitable (and unenviable)

So I finished Harry Potter last weekend (the final book being the only one among the seven that both kept me up ridiculously late and made me cry tears), and now am having a significantly more difficult time distracting myself from the work at hand.

Grading went much more speedily than I could even have hoped for; neither marking errors nor writing comments considerably expedited the process. Tomorrow morning at school I should be able to finish off the timeline projects, and then I'll meet with the professor Monday afternoon to turn in final grades.

I decided yesterday that I was finished with the take-home essay I'd been working on; an introduction (usually one of my stronger points) continues to elude me, but I think I'm just going to turn the essay in without one.

That just leaves The Manifesto to write, which is why, obviously, I'm blogging. I don't know how to write a manifesto. And it's not due until noon on Monday, so although I have several Christmas parties, a brief colloquium, and an engagement with a friend to attend between now and then, and although I'd really like to pack properly, clean my apartment, and finish my Christmas shopping before I fly out on Tuesday, I don't yet have genuine panic to motivate me to write this final exam. I know from (far too much) experience that it will come soon enough, but in the meantime I wish I could use the vaguely jittery, pre-panic period more productively.