April 27, 2008

• When the school year winds down, there’s really too many feelings that float/flow through me, and they somewhat contradict each other.
  … Typically, I feel overwhelmed with what to do with myself over the summer. I make goals related to preparing for the fall, I debate trying to find a “side job” for even more money to pad my accounts for the future, I tell myself that this will be the summer that I really lose some weight or this will be the summer when I go on that cross country road trip or this is the summer that I ___. I get crap from people about having “summers off” all the time; if they did, I wonder if they’d really like it all that much. I mean, I’m teaching English 120 online and my brother’s getting married and I’m running the Relay in May after turning in grades, etc. I don’t just relax the whole summer away. I’m horrible at relaxing. I’m horrible at doing “nothing” for more than a day.
  … So, instead, I overwhelm myself with expectations. I should do this, I should do that… Can anyone see why I LOVE when school starts up again? Because there is a routine to it. There are goals set in stone. There are deadlines. Summers don’t have these things set in place; for this antsy girl, that’s tough to deal with. And it’s not like I want routine all year or deadlines, but I do appreciate them.
  … At the end of each year, I am excited to be finished. To wrap up things, because this is one of the few professions where there is an endpoint to a job. Others have deadlines, sure, but that deadline may get extended or the work may come back to them for revision. When the grades are due, the grades are due. There is something wonderful about that, and also something sad. Something ends, for me, every 16-18 weeks. Either the students have learned something or not. It’s very little time spent with them, and I may not remember 80% of them as they go on in their lives. Yet, if they hated me or this class, that may live on in their memories longer than their names remain in my head.
  … Honestly, with this being our last week of class, I am thrilled to have two classes wrapped up a few weeks ago because I need to train for the Marathon Relay. That is what waits for me even after the grades go into PeopleSoft. And, again, honestly, I’m wondering more and more if I am cut out to run the full marathon by the time I am 33 (an original goal of mine when I started training for the Homecoming 10K).
  … I have intellectual & physical demands on me for the next three weeks, essentially. So, I can’t get sick. *knock on wood* I can’t not run and train. I can’t not keep up with grading. I’m heading towards the finish line…

  • 8:10 pm
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