It's August.....already?

So here I am, on August 8, starting to plan for the new semester, which will be my last one as a full-time (well, full-time sort of, part-time/full-time) professor. Retirement, here I come! I met today with Rob Mundy, a professor of English and director of the Writing Enhanced Course program.  So I'm starting to think about syllabi, books, assignments, stuff like that.

Whiteboard class notes

And next week I'll be in my office, going through registrations and finding my way back.
So
I'm guessing that for me, in a way, summer is over. What about you?

The beginning of the new school year

At Pace University, as I imagine at many universities across the country, we begin our fall semester and our new academic year this week.  Tomorrow we celebrate with convocation, a coming together of students and faculty to set the tone for the academic year ahead.

And classes begin on Wednesday, which is fitting in a way, since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year of 5773, begins at sundown on Wednesday.

For so many of us, the year begins in September.  Here in the Northeastern United States the weather starts getting crisper, the days shorter, and our clothes heavier.  I start thinking about sweaters and getting up in the dark and being indoors more often.

And teaching, and faculty meetings, and hours in front of the computer. 

Welcome back, everyone!

Summer!

Ah yes, a life geared to the academic calendar.

I survived the spring semester, my first teaching semester in four and one half years.  I forgot 1) how much work teaching is and 2) how much I love it (the work and the teaching).

And now the summer.  My "to do" list is incredibly long.  In addition to taking two courses towards my education to become a Commissioned Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, USA (more about that here) I'm taking fiddle lessons AND I promised myself that this would be the summer that I finally got my website up.  So I'm taking a class from Tom Antion on-line that will teach me how to use Wordpress.

Oh, and I'm going to learn Evernote, and I'm taking Meggin McIntosh's Workshop Business 101 four month course to get myself set up to deliver workshops.

You should see the piles of books in my office at home.  In fact, you are seeing the piles of books. 

They are arranged into meaningful piles, but perhaps only for me.  There's the meditation pile, the workshop 101 pile, the CIS 101 pile (did I mention that another summer project is reworking our gen ed computing course, the one that every student has to take and hates?).

They are piled on the floor because there is no room in the bookcases, which leads me to another (perpetual) project which is to CLEAN UP THIS OFFICE!  Sorry, I didn't mean to shout.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer-time to go back to whatever important thing it was that I was doing.

Fall semester, already?

I have absolutely no idea where the summer went, that's for sure.

I worked, we went to Asheville, NC, I worked some more, we went to P'town and hurried back to avoid Irene, and I worked some more.

Oh, I see, I worked all summer, that's where it went!

How I miss the 16 weeks of vacation that I got as a faculty member!  Giving them up was one of the trade offs that I had to weigh when I agreed to serve as the (Interim) dean, but now as I begin year four (!) I find myself really wishing I had been able to take more vacation time.  I could use a complete rest, time away from the rat race, and as Lily Tomlin says, even if you win, you're still a rat!

But now it's the first day of class, and the race is on!

Good luck to all of us, students, teachers, parents.