Summer Break Ends

At the campus, the new semester started today. I stopped there for a while this afternoon to make sure all my photocopies and other materials are ready. When I had checked everything and was prepared to walk to my car, I sent a short text to Mr. Fun. I wrote, "I'm coming home -- heat the spa!"

So a few minutes later the garage door lifted open; I backed my car in, turned off the engine and entered the house where Mr. Fun was waiting. I put on my swimsuit and into the pool we went (and my point and shoot camera went with me).

Beginning tomorrow, every Tuesday and Thursday morning I'll be the instructor "on duty" in the Writing Center from 8:00-10:00. Then I'll make a brief stop in my office to get my books and materials and on to the classroom with class from 10:15-12:20. From 12:30 to 1:30 I'll be back in the Writing Center. Then some moments doing office time. Most Tuesdays, and some Thursdays, campus meetings are scheduled from 2:45-3:45 for all faculty.

So this afternoon was the "final swim of summer." I know that summer is not "officially" over, but here at "Fun-ville" it's over. The lazy hazy crazy days of summer 2010 are now pressed permanently into the history book.

When I was a youngster, the end of summer and beginning of school meant new shoes, new dresses, a new lunch-pail and a 3-ring notebook. I would go to bed early with butterflies in my stomach and wake the next morning veiled in anxiety. Mom packed my lunch and I put it into the basket on the front handlebars of my fat tired Schwinn bicycle. I wore the key to my bike lock around my neck on kite string.

The first day in the classroom the hard task came when a teacher thought all of us should individually gather our memories, report what we had done, and analyze what we'd learned. Then we had to write an articulate story titled, "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." That must have been a universal experience; everyone refers to it this time of year.

Tomorrow I won't write a summer reflection essay. My hard task will be telling some potential students that there is no room for them in my classroom. The class has a capacity of 30, which is 5 more than the National Council of English Teachers recommends. I have a wait list of 30 people. I don't look forward to the sad, frustrated, and angry students as I politely refuse them entry into my composition class.

I think when it is over, I'll come home and take my first swim for this semester.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol