The best thing about being a professor - except for (most of) the students and the good conversations and at least a generous percentage of colleagues and getting paid to talk about what you love … okay let me restart this.
One of the best things about being a professor is academic summers. Witness: I am now technically on summer break, and will be until the second week in August. Of course, the summers are crammed with all the work you couldn’t get done in your (minimum) sixty-hour weeks during the semesters, but still, it’s a change of pace. If you’re the sort of person who gets bored very easily, I recommend academia.
That said, the days of transition from a highly regimented set of deadlines and meetings to the loose, free-form scheduling of summer can be - at least for me - sort of a nightmare. And even though I’m still a bit of an introvert, I find that going from being only a holler or a knock away from a colleague to days spent in quiet writing and reading is similarly difficult.
This is only my second summer, so I’m still trying to remember when I’ll stop feeling kind of bummed out and start reveling in it. I do remember that around the middle of June I start to remember why I teach and don’t write full-time. Maybe this is the summer where I write that article about why writers should teach.
Anyhow: hi, it’s summer, for me. Anyone want to go to the beach?
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