August is the cruelest time of year. If come just off of July, a tentative kind of month as far as summer is concerned, with the real start of it on Independence Day. But by August you’re fully into the swing of it, you have three-quarters of your tan and you’ve completely forgotten what socks feel like, you’re way into fresh tomatoes and peaches and sitting outside for dinner. You’ve gotten used to sleeping with just a sheet over you, mosquito bites, how good that cold bottle of brew feels in your hand. You can’t get enough ice cream, swimming, summer blockbusters, cricket chirps at night and early sunrises in the morning. But if you’re a teacher, or a college professor like me, you know these things are just there to taunt you, exclude you, set you on the outside looking in. Because if teaching is your chosen profession, you can kiss all these things adios by mid-month. Because by that time you’re already neck-deep into the brain-frying task of the dreaded CLASS PREP!

“Teachers get the whole summer off.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! You know what I’m doing now? It’s not laying on the beach, that’s for damn sure. What I’m doing now, by the very act of writing this is slacking from what I’ve been doing for the last week–interminable reading, lesson plans, website updating, essay prompt preparation, yadda-von-fucking-yadda. And if you teach college, you have the equally interminable Pre_Class week, where you have Online Training, Orientations, Departmental Meetings, College Assembly, Convocation, etc. etc. etc. ewwch, arrgguuuh!

Okay, gotta go. My Blackboard site is screaming for my attention because it goes live in ONE WEEK. “Teachers get the whole summer off.” Oh man–I’m cryin’!