Showing Up

pepperminting via Pixabay

When I was a freshman in college, fall break wasn't a thing -- at least not at my school. The first break longer than a weekend came at Thanksgiving and one of my high school friends bet me that I wouldn't make it until then -- that I'd need to come home for a weekend sometime between late August and late November.

Never bet a Jersey girl that she can't do something. She'll either correct you (I could do that if I wanted to) or set out to prove you wrong. In the case of the Thanksgiving challenge, I won the bet.

Sometime before I graduated -- or maybe it was when I was in grad school -- Bucknell instituted fall breaks, a decision all of us appreciated. Ironically, many years after my own freshman year, my daughter ended up choosing a college that didn't have a fall break either. Her freshman year, she decided if I could make it until Thanksgiving, so could she. So, like me, she saw her parents at Parents' Weekend in October and kept herself busy every other weekend between late August and late November.

Now a senior, she still doesn't have a fall break, but I do. This time, I'm on the other side of the desk and I have hurdles to clear in the form of papers and midsemester warning grades. I also managed to end up with not one, but two writing deadlines mid-month and this sundry collection of tasks stands between me and fall break at the beach like a succession of unwelcome dominoes. I have only myself to blame, since every single domino was my idea in the first place.

Yesterday, I was feeling the crunch. Unlike the pleasant crunch of leaves beneath my feet (which we've yet to feel here in Central PA as we had temperatures in the high 80s as late as last week), this time crunch makes me grouchy and leads to me doing things like yelling at my computer screen because MS Word is somehow displaying all of my formatting and I don't know how to make it go away. (I eventually figured it out).

I thought I was alone in this (the dominoes, not the yelling at my computer) -- that everyone else was somehow more organized and on the ball than I. But then, this afternoon, I sat in a meeting with a small group of colleagues as we tried to plow through a task. A little more than halfway through the meeting (which wasn't that long to begin with), everyone ran out of steam. We pooled our resources, wrapped early and scattered to our various tasks, the clock ticking toward our deadlines.

Apparently something about misery really does love company, at least in this case. It's nice to know that on this beautiful, dare I say perfect fall afternoon, other instructors are huddled over laptops, papers and lab reports, wishing for a deadline that's just a little bit later than the one we've been given.

Engin Akyurt via Pixabay

This morning in my first year seminar, I had my students pause to take in the orientation slide on which I announce assignments -- the one that had nothing on it except the discussions we were having in class today and Friday. Together, we sighed at the beauty of the blank expanse of space that usually contained assignments and readings. We knew they'd be back after break but, for today, the slide contained nothing for them to do except show up.

And, for the next several days, that is my task. I simply need to show up, ready to read, grade, calculate and, if necessary, warn that the second half of the semester will require a little more effort than the first.

When I put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad. And it sounds a lot better knowing that, even though I can't see them from my vantage point, my colleagues are showing up, too.

Ready or Not, Here I Come!

melkhagelslag via Pixabay

I am counting down to the beach, and I couldn't be more excited.

Last summer, for the first time in a long time, we didn't go to the beach. I didn't get to brainstorm characters while sitting under an umbrella on the sand with the ocean just a few feet away. I didn't get to post my blogs from the screened-in porch. I didn't get to browse in my favorite indie bookstore.

But all of that is about to change. My fall break is coming, and so is my beach vacation.

Before you waste too much sympathy on my alleged beach deprivation, let me just say that we didn't go to the beach because we went to Ireland instead. My daughter spent a semester in Cork and so we spent spring break visiting her.  As much as I love my beach trips, I have to say that the tradeoff was more than fair.

But I'm ready.

I'm not a hot weather fan, so fall beach trips are right up my alley. I love bundling up under a blanket on the screened-in porch and I long ago traded in swimsuits for the more comfortable beach attire of shorts and a tee shirt, so upgrading to a sweatshirt isn't a big deal.

I'm a unlikely beach goer. I don't swim or surf and more than 20 minutes in the sun is too much for me. But I love to sit under an umbrella and read (or write) with the sound of the ocean as my background. And I love to sit out on the patio with my laptop or my journal (and, with few exceptions, I journal only at the beach) listening to the frogs in the creek below.

michalkirk via Pixabay

Right now, my clothes and toiletries are in their usual locations and my suitcase is still in the basement, but my journals are sitting out, waiting to be slipped into a bag and taken along for the ride. I have lesson plans to write and papers to grade, but these activities (which usually consume my thoughts) are merely hurdles to clear before I can depart for my desired destination. I will do them with the same level of dedication they usually demand, but I'll do so knowing that each task I complete takes me one step closer to that screened-in porch where I'll meet my characters and my deadlines.

I'm ready -- well, except for the grading and the planning and the packing.

But if mental preparedness counts for anything, I'm already there.

Fall Break: 4 Things I'm Looking Forward To

Photo: hercampus.com

Fall break is just around the corner -- or actually, just down the street. It's short, and I'll miss just two days of classes, but it's just enough to give me some breathing time.

Which is exactly what I'm looking forward to...but not exactly what I have planned. I can't wait to:

• Read. I've been close to the end of a book I started at the end of the summer since...the end of the summer. As much as I enjoy reading the books for my classes, I'm looking forward to reading something I don't have to annotate.
• Write. I manage to get my blogs in during the semester, but even that's a challenge some weeks. I'm so close to the final edits on my novel, and this short break should be just long enough to help me clear that hurdle.
• Class planning. Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but planning without deadlines is a whole different experience, especially when the planning revolves around a book I enjoy reading (see bullet #1 above). 
• Organizing. When things get busy, sometimes the only thing I do that pertains to organizing is write about it. I have a few small projects in mind that promise to yield big payoffs in clutter busting and availability of seasonally appropriate clothing and footwear.

I could go on...but I'm trying not to make my list longer than my break -- something that doesn't come easily to me. I see open spaces and they seem so boundless that my lists end up that way, too. So, I'm stopping at four, and if new opportunities arise, perhaps I'll include them as well.

After all, isn't that what breaks are for?