Sweet summer!

Ahhh…! After a couple of months of irritability, exhaustion, intense multi-tasking, summer has arrived. April represents 'month nine of nine intense months,' and mid-May represents a release from stress into a period of re-energization, focus upon the creative juices, and, by necessity from long-term neglect, yard work.  Parenting can again become a pleasure, and fine beer is no longer a distraction but a gift to enjoy.

The spring semester is conference season for archaeologists, as we try to assemble prior to the field season. Archaeologists are simply unavailable to congregate after about May 15th. March through mid-May is a hectic period because unfinished projects stick out like sore thumbs, students’ minds are fried from the long haul of the academic year because they either tried really hard or they tried really hard not to try. The end of the spring semester is a cocktail of tension and stress, but last call, one way or another is the beginning of summer.

Two Junes ago I had the best month of my life; I rode my bike to work each day dropping my (then) one-and-a-half-year-old off at daycare and most days picking him up on the way home. We decided to stay home that year after spending the previous summer working in New Zealand. Even in New Zealand work is work. I went to Portugal for a week or so to visit with a colleague, which was fun. Mainly though I planted native trees in the yard on the weekends, passed time with neighbors in the evenings, and wrote papers and grant proposals during the weekdays. And, it was all pleasant.

During the year I try to teach with enthusiasm, intensity, and rigor throughout. By the end of the spring, teaching feels like catching fish by hand and enthusiasm is a struggle to maintain, which I attempt to do with conscious effort (because it is important to do so). I would not make it through the nine months of the academic year without the three months of summer. So, I am happy it is here, because all other things being equal, the start of the fall semester will be exciting when it arrives. Colleagues and I will be refreshed and invigorated. Tales of summer should be like this one.