DONE!!!! DONE, DONE, DONE!!!!

Ok, so technically there is finals week, but, in spite of the 50 lbs. of papers and then later exams that will weigh me down over the next week, there is something so liberating about the regular semester being done. And not only the end of the spring semester, but the end of the academic year.

I was on the phone with CG last night, ostensibly to finalize "plans" for tonight - even though we both know that the plan is that he's coming over and we're eating and then we'll decide what to do from there - and he actually asked me what I was going to do over the summer. This was such a novel question. Nobody asks me this question, either because the people in my life are also academics, or because they're in my inner circle and they know what I do in the summer time. But CG - he was intrigued by this idea of unscheduled time for 3 1/2 months. (Point in his favor: he at no point said, "It must be nice to have the summer off," or any variation of that.) His whole life is scheduled. As far as I can tell, his job is to go to meetings and to have conference calls. And from what he describes, his meetings don't begin with a viewing of this, as a recent meeting of mine did (although everybody's meetings should, I think). At any rate, though, perhaps everybody needs to think of the CGs of the world at this tiring, stressful time, because let me tell you, we have got a SWEET gig, we grown ups who have the summer to get a break from the grind of one's regular work - even as one still works when one is on that break.

So. I need to get myself together and get to school to collect papers from one of my classes and then to meet with another student from another class about her paper. Then, I need to do some errands for tonight (grocery store for forgotten items, wine store, etc.), then back to school for a couple of "be visible and collegial and socialize!" events, and then I am FREE. I mean, sure I've got to grade, but I'm planning on allowing myself to slack this weekend if I want and then to have a marathon grading day Monday.

So I'm feeling pretty energized on this Friday morning (which, admittedly, has something to do with the fact that I went to bed early last night and got a great night's sleep and slept in this morning), and I'm feeling really excited about the weeks to come. My mom's coming to visit a week from today (yay!), my friend A's coming for Memorial Day (woohoo!), I'm planning my trip to England and also for a conference in June (hurrah!). Life's pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. (You will notice I've been counting my blessings a lot lately. Not sure where this newfound positive outlook has come from, but I think it's definitely a good thing.)