South Padre Island, MA

Last year a friend and colleague of mine at Amherst told me that although the first year of a new faculty position is stressful, the second year hits you like a ton of bricks. He was right.

I'm halfway through the second semester of my second year, it's Spring Break, and I'm going to use this week to pick myself up off the ground, dust myself off, shake off the haze and get ready to power through the rest of the year.

What would I rather be doing this week than reading Spanish major comprehensive exams, sending out book proposals, reading for my classes for next week, making a list of books the library should buy before they run out of money, editing a senior's thesis chapter and starting to work on a conference paper for this summer? Lots of things.

Maybe I'll just post some inane stuff on my blog, though, and pretend it's a vacation.