Summer Livin'
I have discussed, on more than one occasion here on this blog, my deep
and abiding love for summer work. I think I have been conditioned from
the summer school field studies, and camps that summer is not the time
for relaxation, but for different and creative endeavors. This week
marks the first full week of Real Summer, which comes after all my
roving and traveling is over. (Although here are some exciting pictures
from my roving and traveling:
These are are besides the point because now it's time to SUMMER WORK! Zany schemes! New effort! Last summer was lovely because I read around 70 academic books for my field exam, mostly in the pool. This summer I get to work 20 hours a week mostly planning the training, administration and research of the writing center. Additionally I'm working out and losing weight (what, you forgot about that post?), volunteering at the Bishops' Storehouse, meeting with my advisers, finishing my research project, and learning how to podcast about rhetoric. I want to keep up my foreign languages, play more with my friends and co-religionists, work on my novel, memorize more things, and catch up to my Goodreads goals.
Speaking of which, and speaking of which in another way, I read this book for work (yeah!) this week. The thesis is that reality may be broken because it doesn't offer what games offer: feedback, collaboration, community, achievement, fun failure, epic scale, etc. This hits right into my box-checking tendencies. Yes, it's fun to go to museums (like the Philadelphia museum of art above), but it's even more fun if you set a master-goal of seeing all ten of the best museums of art before you turn 30. That's kind of how I approach summer, as series of challenges that are different from the boring ones of the rest of the school year. There's space to play, and to reinvent yourself, and summer work it.
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