The last day of vacation

Desert flowers taken on my trip to visit family in Arizona...during which I did absolutely no grading.

I always tell my students not to wait until the last day of vacation to start their work. And I always promise myself that this year I will not wait until the last day of vacation to start my own work.

It’s the last day of Spring Break, and I haven’t started my work.

Why do I do this to myself? What is it about vacation brain that convinces otherwise reasonable people that the work will somehow disappear if we ignore it? 

I know some of it is a desire to have a real break during vacation. That’s the point of a break, right? To not work? But I also know that is silly. School work has never stayed neatly within the bounds of the school day, and one of the reasons breaks like this are so important to me as a teacher is the opportunity to get caught up.

But if “getting caught up” requires an eight-hour grading binge on the last day before that pre-dawn alarm clock, I am definitely doing something wrong.

I haven’t been a total slacker. I am in the midst of an online graduate program in pursuit of a second Master’s degree, so I did a lot of work for that class. I visited family in Tucson, began a massive closet purge, continued to train for my next half marathon, and participated in that perennial teacher tradition: going to all of the daytime appointments I can’t usually do during a normal school week. ALL the doctors’ appointments and hair cuts!

Still. It’s 3 p.m. on Sunday, and my grading bag is giving me the stinkeye. I should probably get on that.

At least I know my students are in the same boat.