Summer Vacation

Double time
Originally uploaded by karijean

With the Fourth of July over (or, as Will says, "Happy Birthday Fourth!"), I'm staring down the gun at a long summer.

I know, poor me, right? It's hard to get sympathy about two* months off. To be fair, I work hard all year in order to earn this summer off. Plus, I get paid for crap, so I might as well get two months off--one of the very very few perks of teaching.**

Sometimes, though it doesn't really feel like a perk. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind not having to get up with an alarm in the morning. But to go from a world of daily deadlines where planning and organization can make or break you to absolutely aimless days is a little overwhelming.

I don't do aimless well. I do one of two things: I sink into a well of inertia which, yeah, good times! or rearrange every closet in my house while weeding the lawn and building a to-scale model of Portland's Pearl District.*** I may have a problem with finding a happy medium (ya think?)

In the meantime, take a look at Flickr. Fourth of July pictures are up (compare them with last year's! Lookit me, coming full circle!), and I'll be updating the Flickr stuff with pictures as I find a way to distract myself from having nothing to do. I've got some geocaching I did out in wine country, and I plan to do more around PDX and its environs.

Happy Fourth of July, happy summer everyone.

* Yes, it is only two months. June 20-something was our last day, and I have to return on August 20-something. Again, I know, poor me, but I just wanted to clear that up.

** Not that I don't love teaching, because I do. But it's a damn. Hard. Job. With very very few upsides. Objectively speaking, summer is one of the few.

***Or I rearrange someone else's basement. True story.