Summer
school has begun, and along with it comes an onslaught of new assignments to
grade because the term takes 16 weeks of material and compresses it into 5
weeks. Anyone with the misconception that summer school is a cakewalk is sadly
misinformed. The problem for me, of course, is that I’m already partially
burned out from the regular semester. Two weeks of down time from the end of
Spring to the beginning of summer is no break at all, really.
I had to
grade the previous semester’s work then begin preparations for the summer,
which means I had no time at all for personal recovery. Sure, I get the
occasional time to plunk myself in front of the TV and veg out, but it’s not
enough. I feel mentally drained, or at least not refreshed to take on the next
wave, and the only thing that will actually help with that is time.
I’m also in
the conundrum of not having done any serious writing in the past three months.
My teaching took a lot out of me, forcing me to spend time creating content for
classes instead of content for books. Fortunately, my summer classes already
have all the content created. I don’t need to scramble to create new lessons,
just give the ones I already have.
But
shifting back into a writing habit is not going to be easy. Those few times
I’ve done it during the semester I’ve found myself somewhat refreshed, but I’m
out of practice. I need to redevelop the habit so that I’m looking forward to
the writing instead of treating it as something that must be done.