What Will You Be Doing With Your "Free Time" This Summer?

• You people suck so hard. Your cheery absinthe-flavored hiatus post just made me want to croak. I hope it's all an act and you're actually teaching summer school like me. It would make my hate for summer a little less to think at least you had to share some of the work. But, if I'm going to play fair, yes, I'm going to teach one session, but I'm taking the other session off to be with my family, race around with pals, go golfing in Miami with my brother, catch some big finned tuna in the ocean, squire Britney to a tractor pull in Shreveport, perform Shakespeare for a cemetery full of earthbound spirits, and, of course, shoot some coconut husks off a split rail fence. Like I said, you guys really suck.
  


• Pursuing maximum pain for two students who plagiarized their lab reports.
  


• I'll be studying my ass off with all my "free time" this summer. Qualifying exams come up in the fall, and I have absolutely no intention of taking them twice.
  


• Summer? Your old fashioned notions of academic life having a seasonal rhythm are so quaint. As an online instructor teaching non-trads at a school with classes starting every month, I don't have summer. I don't have winter. Or Christmas. I never go to class, but I never don't have class. I can go to the archives in Bananastan whenever I want and teach from the Internet café in the evening. I can take any day off I want to take a day trip with the kids. I can go to conferences anywhere at any time without groveling to the department and rescheduling classes for dozens of knowledge-starved students. I just teach online from the hotel. But I can never take three days in a row off. Ever. I cannot - ever - leave the Internet. My university posts an automatic e-mail message to me, my department head, and the dean if I do not log in to class within 72 hours of my last log in. If I wait that long, the stack of e-mails and unanswered conference queries would be overwhelming anyway. Every month is grades month. Every month is "new syllabi" month. Every month is right in the middle of the term, with discussions to take part in, papers to grade and tests to do in several classes. To reach U.S. median income I need to have at least five or six going at any one time, enough to prevent any month or season from bringing significant differences in workload. July is just like January.
  


• I'm going to drink caipharinas in South America,courtesy of my tax rebate and the money I made selling unwanted desk copies of mediocre textbooks online.
  


• I'm teaching five courses over the two summer sessions. Business Writing, English 101, English 102, Gothic Literature, Shakespeare. I'm jist a girl who cain't say no. (Oklahoma--Ooooooh kla homa where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain.) It's like a vacation. But you have fun, guys. I admire your work ethic!!
  


• Enjoying the company of adults, or people who act like them, at least.
  


• My summer plan consists of three stages. Stage 1: get drunk. Stage 2: ................ Stage 3: write papers.
  


• What on earth am I going to do with all of my free time this summer? What kind of fucked up question is that? I already know what types of responses you will get to that question: 1) pissy responses from hardworking academic types who don't have the summer off because they will be teaching, writing, trying to publish, etc., and 2) jubilant responses from those who will claim that they actually spend their summers drinking margaritas by the poolside. I feel sorry for the former type, and the latter type... well, I hate those assholes. By the way, the semester is not over where I work so I'm still stuck in the classroom with these whiny little grade-grubbing bastards for another week, so I resent the timing of your question. But thanks for asking.