Juggling

I am getting apprehensive, as the new semester approaches, about how I'm going to fit everything into my life. I do this every fall - I panic about juggling job, teaching, and research with the rest of life - but somehow it always works out in the end. I have no reason to believe this year will be any different, but I am more anxious this time. I think it's because I didn't really get a break this summer, as I have in years past. Last summer we had two weeks on Sanibel Island; the summer before I did very little academic work, frankly, and relaxed with guilt-free abandon on evenings and weekends. This summer, there has been no real break. Fortunately, we have plans to spend next weekend on the farm and the last weekend in September in Maine, but despite the pleasure that the thought of those trips gives, I still feel wound up as tight as a spring. I need a beach day, or a hiking day, or a kite-flying day - a day in which I don't feel guilty for not studying or coding every waking moment... Until then, I suppose I'd better get back to work.