board of teaching

I finished the draft of the Board of Teaching institutional report last Friday. The culmination of approximately 300 hours over the summer and fall, mostly nights and weekends, because it was done on top of my teaching load and other responsibilities. I sent it to the faculty and my Dean, and got all the feedback via email and at our faculty meeting this afternoon. I made all revisions and now I'm sleeping on it one more night. Then tomorrow, I send it off to the BoT for review. This feels even more stressful than when I emailed off my dissertation draft. There is a lot at stake, not just for me, but our whole department. I mean, another institution is the center of some big news related to their botched BoT visit. No pressure.

an indulgent few days

I really need summer vacation. More than I've ever, ever needed a summer vacation. But summer vacation doesn't start for me until July 2nd. I have been telling myself since, oh, October, that though I'm exhausted, burned out, and crabby, I just need to push through until... after NRC, then it was winter break, then just get to spring break, then it was the end of undergrad term, and now just until July 2nd. I am having a really hard time doing it. Pushing through. Staying on top of my game and being an enthusiastic professor, literacy coach, friend, runner. I know that three weeks is not that long. But after putting off my collapse for 9 months, it still feels like an eternity. I get it that lots of people don't get summer vacation. I don't care about those people. The life of a teacher is just a differently demanding life, and I need vacation. Stat.

So I scheduled myself a mini-break. Got a massage on Thursday. Unfortunately, the knots in my back were so bad that after 90 minutes focused mostly on torturing my right shoulder, I'm still sore 3 days later. And the knots are still there. But a little less huge. It was a good idea, though. I don't feel the biggest one when I take a deep breath anymore. I followed that up with a delightful lunch with a friend and her adorable daughter, a walk around Lake Nokomis, and a Twins game. A pretty great day.

For the rest of the weekend, I worked on Friday and then went to visit a friend in Des Moines. An easy drive, and is always great to visit this dear friend. We had a wonderful time catching up, watching her kids play baseball (adorable!), watching a band I hadn't seen since my college days, and enjoying her choir sing at church. I'm lucky I could make this happen.

I was a little sad to get home and have to dive right back into work (with a short delay to blog, of course), but it was a nice respite from spring term. I'm not going to lie, I'm no less exhausted and burned out than I was Thursday morning, but maybe I'm a little less crabby.

T minus 3 weeks.