This post is part of a series. View the last post for context.
I’m ready for summer. I know I’m going to regret saying that in roughly mid-July, when it’s been 108º for 14 days in a row and I can’t get the house cool enough and all I want to do is hover above my bed at night so I can sleep without anything touching my skin. So yeah I’m going to regret wishing for summer. I always do. But I always end up wishing for it anyway, because I need the summer vibes. No school, long evenings, taking the kids swimming every weekend, eating popsicles barefoot until 9:00 on the back porch… I need all of that.
Most of all, I need to only be taking one class, and it’s an independent study. I can’t even imagine that right now, but it’s going to happen.
Of course I still work all summer, but it’s chill here. Hardly any students, hardly any noise. No events, no commencement coming up, no pressure.
But it’s not summer yet. We are in the thick of things. With the passing of our dear friend Kyle, we are all extraordinarily busy, stressed, unsure how we’re going to make everything happen, and counting the days until commencement is over and everything slows way, way down.
Happily, Dr. Hammonds gave us an extra two weeks (!!!) to do our synthesis paper. I never would have thought to ask, but my classmate did us a solid. The bigger, longer assignments are rapidly approaching, where I’m really going to have to buckle down and do some serious reading, thinking, and writing. In my poetry class, it will be time soon to start putting the final chapbook together.
It’s only been seven weeks, but it feels like the semester is deeply underway, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed, and what’s keeping me going is knowing how accomplished I’ll feel when this semester is over.
After May, nothing is left for me but independent studies — three of them, to be exact — so if I can get through this, I’ll have some breathing room.
Are you in a similar boat? Hang in there with me! We’ve got this!
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