The School Year is Almost Over

This school year (do you call it that when it’s teaching college?) went by very fast. There’s a pile of grading standing between me and the end of the year. Some of it I will get done this weekend; the rest during the week while I am giving final exams. I will get through grading, and then on to the summer.

I think I will have 10 interns this summer. That’s not a lot of interns, but it will keep me busy. I will have time to rest and write in between internship supervision. I already have prepped my classes for fall while bored in my office, so I’m ahead of the game.

I need this break. It has been an intense school year.

The Seasonless Year under COVID-19

I can’t tell what season it is.

In academia, we have a defined year with three seasons. It starts in fall with the first day of classes, and fall semester ends with Christmas. In January, the spring semester rolls around, and it’s of slightly different character than fall semester, lacking the tinsel and greens of December and adding the bacchanalia of Spring Break. The school year ends at the beginning of May, and even though I supervise internships and take an online course for my Disaster Mental Health certification, the change in routines — no faculty meetings, flexible schedule, time to take a vacation — marks that a season has passed. Until the end of summer, when we start preparing our classes for the school year.

I have no such thing this year.

We started online classes in March, which made the school year feel like an endless prep period, typing on our computers and missing the face-to-face interaction. I’m answering emails from students at 9 PM and at 5 AM, so I feel like I’m always working. We’re going from that to summer — but the freedom of travel has evaporated with COVID-19’s sequestering. So I’ll spend the summer working with my interns online using Zoom, and the flexibility of my time will not matter. Days are melting into a sameness, and that sameness is work without any defined boundaries.

I admit that I’m getting a decent amount of writing done because I have to do something with the time I’m not working on student stuff. And I’m grateful that I can shelter in place, as my age and weight makes me at risk for a more severe infection. But I find my rejoicing at summer terribly muted, because there is no summer. I wonder when there will be a summer again.

A reading that seems to corroborate my current feelings:
https://theconversation.com/will-covid-19-be-the-death-of-summer-vacation-135776

The Changing Seasons of the Academic Calendar

It’s August first, and I can feel the season change even though it’s warm outside. That’s because I base my seasons on the academic calendar, and there are only three seasons: fall semester, spring semester, and summer.

I’m approaching the end of summer right now, so I’m beginning to prepare for fall semester, updating my online classwork, getting a new work computer, finishing up my internships, cleaning up and rearranging my office (already done!), setting up my calendar … the rhythm of life changes.

Fall semester is the beginning of my calendar, as it brings new things: A shiny new school year, new students, beginning meetings (ok, not everything about the new school year is wonderful). It also embraces football (American) tailgates, dressing up for Halloween, the feast of Thanksgiving, the Christmas season and its associated rituals on a college campus.

Spring semester starts with winter — the Christmas snow is now slushy and dirty, the beginning of the semester meetings seem like same old same old, and Valentine’s Day as a holiday just doesn’t measure up to Christmas. But then come Spring, and the unexpected: the Northwest Yeti comes out of hiding, there’s a big cow statue in front of the Hy-Vee grocery store, art installations spring up like mushrooms, and students plunge into the chilly waters of Colden Pond for charity.

Then we come back to summer, where things slow down, and faculty spend their summers teaching abroad or taking on interns or taking summer classes or teaching short, intensive summer classes. And going on vacation. My summer has been spent supervising interns, taking a class for my certification in Disaster Mental Health, doing moulage (simulating physical injury and illness for training purposes), and taking a mini-vacation. And writing.

So that is my year, and the signs of a seasonal change keep popping up: the announcement of beginning of semester meetings, the back-to-school sales, discussions of how well our football team may do this year (we have one of the best Division II teams in the nation, which for those of you in other countries would be like a lower division soccer league), and emails from students trickling in.

It should be a good year.

******************

Yesterday was a tough day — two rejections (one agent, one submission of a short story). I don’t feel so bad about the short story rejection, because I think my choice of genre (fantasy) might keep my work from being accepted by some markets. And there’s a lot of competition.

I need to toughen up about agent rejections.

I truly believe at this point that I’m getting rejections because of something as simple as fashion, and I will believe that until someone says otherwise. I’m willing to improve, but I’ve improved as much as dev editors, beta readers, publishing coaches, and my own judgment have allowed me to.

Please wish me luck. I’m serious.