Monday, August 20, 2012

I don't wanna wake up

Here at Grit City U., we don't officially start for another week, but this week-before seems just as hard: it's the week where you wake up from that beautiful dream you call "summer" and realize that, yes, you do have to finish your syllabi, and post them online, along with the other course materials, and call the bookstore to make sure your books are in, and figure out where your classrooms are, and try to find out why one of them appears to be completely gutted and whether it will be operational in time for the first day, and get your books on reserve in the library, and get certified for the new service assignment you just agreed to last week, and wonder why you still haven't cleaned out that one drawer in your desk (you know the one), and start running into people you haven't seen all summer and realize "Hey, I actually have some pretty cool colleagues here!" and resolve -- once again -- to avoid negative people and complain less and accentuate the positive and not get emotionally involved when something falls apart and devote all hours before 10 a.m. to writing and to treat your non-work-life as a priority and maybe this will be the semester you learn a language or meditate every day or...

Note to self: take one of these and chill the fuck out.

And then you realize that you're setting yourself up to make yourself crazy yet again, so you pick one of these things as a must-do to focus on right now, and a second one as a thing to aspire to, and breathe, and know that even if it's not different this time, it will be the same in a different way, so  maybe this time you can have a good giggle at it, all the while keeping that one tiny corner of your brain labeled "summer" (the one where you made new friends and swam in the ocean and drank espresso with sweetened condensed milk) as a little internal refuge for just a while longer.


4 comments:

Comrade Physioprof said...

That looks like an outstanding caffeinated beverage!

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, the Spanish bonbon coffee, is it? I'd love one of those just now...

Notorious Ph.D. said...

It is the "bonbon" or "biberó," depending on where you go. The owner of my local coffee shop is contemplating introducing them to the menu, right here in Grit City. Cake in a cup!

Historiann said...

I always thought that was a Vietnamese thing--at least, that's where I was introduced to the concept. (In a Vietnamese resto in Philadelphia, not in Vietnam itself.)

I just might pick up a can of sweetened condensed milk & whip up one of those for my p.m. pickmeup.

Have a great day of classes tomorrow/this week. We're already one week into the term!