There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation and School Comes Along Just to End It

It's official. I only have 20 days of summer vacation left, and while I can't say that I have spent my vacation exactly like Phineas and Ferb, I would like to think I have been productive.

I taught two summer classes, made two fall syllabi, threw a bachelorette party, rearranged my living room, was a Maid of Honor, spent a week at my Aunt's helping her prepare for a MASSIVE garage sale, held two awesome Disney parties and planned about 10 more, cleaned my junk room, linen closet, pantry, and office, hosted one of my lovely little sisters for a week, and watched all three seasons of The Walking Dead for the first time.

 I was pretty excited about finding that rubber band ball!

I guess I can't get away with saying I don't have anything to eat.

Small Fry (littlest sister) and Emma (puppy) became BFFs when she came to stay.

Not bad, right? Well, not until I start thinking about all of the things I hope to accomplish in the next 20 days.

As far as cleaning goes, I still need to clean out the man cave, the closets in the junk room, the laundry room, and the backyard.

I also have plans this weekend to go over to my Aunt's and help her redecorate her kitchen/continue working on the garage sale.  I don't know that I plan to actually do the garage sale before I go back to school, but I do hope to get it done before garage sale season is over!

There are hopefully a few more Disney parties in my summer, but I would love to be able to plan out the rest before they come so I don't spend valuable grading time on them. 

As far as work goes, I still have about four syllabi to make! And I just found out today that I will be teaching an Introduction to Philosophy class for the first time this fall. I'm very excited, but I'm also VERY nervous! It's been a long time since I've had a philosophy class, so I have a lot of reading to do between now and then. I signed up for a Coursera Introduction to Philosophy course, but it doesn't start until October.

I will also be doing a presentation at the Arkansas Association of Two Year Colleges (AATYC) conference in mid-October with a colleague. We're going to discuss our decision to teach three different documentation styles in our research class rather than just teaching MLA. The decision to present began with a discussion about the need to get published if I ever hope to get into a reputable PhD program, so that is the eventual goal with this topic. 

There's also the whole process of finding the right PhD program for me. Unfortunately, I don't really even know where to begin!

You would think that I don't have to grade papers when I'm not teaching, but you would be wrong! I have 10 papers I need to grade for an assessment meeting when I go back to work in a few weeks. I also have to finish up a self-assessment. 

Also, because I am the advisor for two student organizations on campus, I have work to do for both of those. The Student Government Association (SGA) is having a meeting a week from today. There are also a number of things I need to do for Phi Theta Kappa before returning to school including making a website for the advisor's association. 

To end on a more positive note, I also have a lot of Doctor Who to watch!  I've been watching the reboot, but I really want to go back and start from the beginning.  The more I think about this, the more I realize this a crazy endeavor (there are SO MANY episodes), but I really enjoy tv as an escape from reality, and this is one of my new favorites (and I just might be that crazy)!  Another escape from reality that I thoroughly enjoy is reading (duh, I'm an English teacher)! Recently my friend Ed sent me a copy of a book he wrote, and I really want to finish it before school starts again.  No rest for the wicked!

Godspeed!