Rethinking my goals and possibilities

Well, I still have yet to actually get anything done or make any progress on anything so far this week, but today, I promise that changes!

While I am 100 million % not ready for school to start (as in I don't want to go back to work, and I'm totally unprepared for classes to begin), I think I actually NEED school to start so that I have some structure here. 

Perhaps I need to rethink summers. I got more written and read during the year when I was teaching than I have during this whole time that I've not been teaching. Perhaps summer is not a good "catch up on all the stuff I didn't get done during the year time." Maybe I got pretty decent at getting work done during the year that I just don't want to do anything else during the summer.

Maybe that sounds like a total cop out. I know for 99% of you, summer is when stuff gets done even if you are productive during the year. I'm jealous of that, actually. I would have liked to have knocked out my articles this summer. But one thing that I'm really, I mean REALLY trying to work on right now is the way I think about things. I mean, I think what I need to do for next summer is set a goal right off the bat. I won't be teaching--let me rephrase that--I do not plan on teaching since the J has a job, so I feel confident in saying that I'm not going to teach next summer. I think what I need to do is just say, "okay, from 9-12, M-F, I work--I will read and write things related to the work I want to do." And I will have to have a plan before the end of Spring Quarter.

While I have been down on myself about the lack of academic stuff I've done this summer, I have enjoyed spending the summer focusing on myself. I've gotten really good at cooking and meal planning (not that I always meal plan). I've gotten closer to my fitness and health goals. All things that will have a positive effect on what I hope to get done during the year.

Even though I felt this was an all important summer on getting research done, I think that was part of the problem--total self sabotage in this area. I made the work momentous and huge and prematurely too important. If this were my fourth summer and I were still where I am, then yes, this summer probably would have made or broke me in terms of my ability to get tenure. But as often happens with me, I totally shut down under the weight of importance.

That being said, it is imperative that I get something out by the time Spring Quarter starts and that I do try to get something else out by next October. I feel confident that I can meet those goals, and that I'll still be making good progress toward the tenure qualifications. (I have about 34 of the required 50 page minimum right now. Trick will not be in the writing, but in getting things accepted--and by October, all 34 of those pages will actually be IN PRINT).

I like spending the summer learning and focusing on new, non-academic things. It's been refreshing not having to move, not having to deal with a deployment, not having to finish a dissertation while working at a crappy job or finishing a dissertation while scrapping by for food. This is the first summer I've had in a very long time that hasn't been filled with stress and anxiety requiring medication in one form or another. I've had my freak out moments (uh, like what Friday? Saturday?), and it hasn't all been puppies and rainbows, but maybe the chance to "just be" is what I needed. I'm healthier than I have been in my entire life.

So right now I need to map out a plan, some goals, a reading list, and deadlines (both long and short), come up with a plan of attack (I should do the same thing with our outstanding debt, too). I need to get to work on finishing those syllabi (the goal is to have them both done, with the schedule of assignments finished by Friday). And I need to get the first two novels for the novel class read by Saturday so I can be ahead of the game a little bit and start prepping them. I am freaking out a little bit about this class to be honest, but oh well. It's only 11 weeks.

And tomorrow I go start getting the "sugly" (summer ugly) sloughed off with a hair appointment, and I think I'm going to get my nails and toes done, too. Today though, I read and work on those syllabi.