Free at last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!

tchssssssst-chok!....gulp, gulp...ahhhh! The sweet taste of freedom!

The summer session at CNU is finally over and not a moment too soon. This session seemed to last forever. It had nothing to do with my classes or my students. They were fine. The workload, as it usually is during the summer and winter breaks, was hardly taxing. The problem was my seeming inability to find any inspiration at all. Dragging my sorry ass to class grew increasingly more difficult with each passing day. I'd wake up, plaster a nice cheery smile on my face, mutter some foul epithet accompanied by a sigh, and trudge off to class. Once I got to class and started teaching, I usually rose to the occasion and made the best of it. However, looking at some of the less than enthusiastic student evaluations I got this time around, it would seem that my burnout (for lack of a better word) showed through. On the bright side, I've got a new and improved contract, the idiot in the FLEC office has been replaced, and we have new textbooks for both the freshmen and institute classes, so hopefully, things (mainly my attitude) will be back to normal when the new semester starts.

Before all that happens though, I'm off to Canada and the States for 10 days of R&R. I'm heading to see my brother and his family as well as my aunt and uncle, none of whom I've seen in 4 years. I'm flying into Montreal to meet my brother and then we'll be driving to Cape Cod on the Massachusettes coast for a week of sun, sand, fishing, and, hopefully, a Red Sox game.

See y'all when I get back!