You know how summer is the great recharger, that period of time where we come back to life, those of us who toil in the academy?Well it's not working on me this year. I've been off since May 11th and I'm hating life and students and my shitty college exactly the same now as I was nearly 2 months ago.
Where's the get up and go? Where's the signs of life? By now I've usually gone to campus to move some papers around, clean up the mess from last term. But this year I'm just eating pudding morning, noon, and night, watching the celebrity death march on TV, and wishing I could just sail away.
Sail away? Yep, I'd sell this crappy 1945 Craftsman faller-downer in a minute for a sloop or a sorta-sloop. Just put the mainsail or jib or whatever in the air and nod aimlessly in a pretty sea, hell, even down this shitty river here in shitty college town America if I had to.
Why aren't I coming around? Oh, am I an old timer? Well, not really. It's my 5th year! I'm not jaded; I don't remember the good old days when students were forceful and engaged. I've always had snowflakes and they've always been complete assholes.
But every summer has recharged me. Except this one.
What am I to do? Sail away? Stay and fight? Wait for the inevitable recharging? Accept that maybe I won't recharge again and learn to live with the disappointment?
