Excuse me, there’s a galaxy in my coffee

I’m a teacher by trade, and Decem­ber can be a try­ing time for ped­a­gog­ics. What with recal­ci­trant stu­dents, big stacks of papers to mark, sleep­less nights — most of them cloudy and star­less — and cold, snowy dri­ves to work, Decem­ber is not the most enliven­ing of months.