Sunday, April 29, 2007

Aren't we there yet?

I have two teaching days left, and then one set of final papers and two sets of exams to grade--not to mention a crush of meetings and receptions and semi-mandatory social events--between now and May 15th, but as far as I'm concerned, the semester is already over.

How do I know that the semester is over?

Well, the trees are finally fucking blooming, that's for one (for the last two weeks, I've been peering intently at every one I pass, desperate for signs of life). And I've administered my evaluations. And I'm already putting in requests for my spring 2008 classes.

But the real sign that the semester is over is the fact that I've been spending hours a day ordering books through ILL and ABE and looking stuff up in the MLA database--and not just stuff for my current chapter or my most immediately due conference submission, but also for an essay that's not due for ages, and some abstracts I've been mulling over on entirely new topics, and weird shit for my teaching, and those couple of vague book projects that have popped into my head over the last six months. I've also been walking around the apartment picking up random books as they catch my eye and then collapsing on the sofa to poke around in them for 20 minutes.

I've recovered my curiosity--or my ability to be curious--about anything without an immediate deadline attached to it.

And that, my friends, is a sure sign that not just the semester, but the school year, are OVER.

6 comments:

Tiruncula said...

I've got blossoms and ILL here, too! Yay! (Now if only ILL books grew on trees...)

medieval woman said...

I'm with ya - research! That we don't have to put aside because we have to plan a lecture!

Happy spring...

Hilaire said...

Oh my god - *yay* for curiosity!! And blossoms - they're happening here, too...magnolia trees about to burst...

Have fun...

Greenwit said...

I know this is not a popular question amongst people who swing it like we swing it, but...

would you consider dropping everything for two weeks and staring off into space/art/pint glasses for hours at a time? the most productive parts of my summers are often marked by complete and utter sloth. after a semester without weekends, one deserves a week or two of them.

Flavia said...

Truewit: Oh, totally. Sometimes after turning in my grades I take the rest of May off. . . and even during those weeks when I'm officially working I goof off a lot (this is why I don't think I could ever teach during summer session--I need huge amounts of downtime for every hour worked).

Pamphilia said...

Echoing Truewit. All I want to do it sit on the couch and watch old episodes of Buffy and Arrested Development. Which I did all day yesterday. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. And stupidly walked in to teach my last class today asking my students if they were ready for the last day of "Shakespearey Goodness."