The Promise of Summer

       Sometimes I talk to a guy named Future Self.  When I stuff the winter coats and boots into a tote box one mild weekend in May, I say "That's gonna be Future Self's problem."  I did not do a great job of cleaning my classroom desk drawers in the last days of school, and Future Self will resent me for that, too.  Over and over I make promises to Future Self, and all too often they get broken.
       Future Self totally hates my guts. I don't blame him.

        It's almost the midpoint of summer vacation.  There's a crate in the corner stuffed full of folders and packets that I brought from school to "review" and "sift through" and "seek inspiration."  My laptop and Google Drive are strewn with files -- many of these were hastily named "Untitled" -- that still have not been organized into folders. And perhaps worst of all I had totally planned to re-record some videos this summer because they're much harder to make during the school year.
       Looks like Future Self will hate me again.
       For the next two weeks I have a professional development workshop: an NEH Institute with hundreds of pages of readings, and then a research paper assignment. So that will keep me busy through the first week of August!  Yeah yeah, I could have done some stuff earlier this month, but for the past two weeks I was working a Reading Club summer school for incoming students until 1:30 each day.  Who says that teachers get summers off?!
        Future Self will read this one day in a few months and think "What was he complaining about? The grass was green, he could walk the dog without freezing his fingers, and all those activities were self-inflicted."  Good points, but I don't wanna hear them.

        We need to recharge, do different things, try to actually miss the classroom a little bit.  And balance that with doing some of the practical things that will make the school year easier.  Maybe Future Self will solve that problem in June 2016. (He's gonna hate me for that....)