Summer Goals

I think every teacher grapples with this dilemma: there is a multitude of things you want to accomplish because you finally have some unstructured time after approximately 9 months of frenzy. You are looking forward to many if not all of these tasks. You can't wait to get started on them. And yet you fail to accomplish even a fraction because you're paralyzed, largely because of the aforementioned lack of structure that gives you the illusion of amplitude and blinds you to the realities of the timeframe you actually have to work with. You feel something like "I must accomplish ALL THE THINGS. NOW." And end up accomplishing virtually nothing.

I'm going to try to remedy this by identifying my summer goals, scheduling them on specific days and times over the summer so they are distributed and represented, and then check back in with myself in August. If I don't "schedule" different things I find I end up throwing all my time at one task when I intended to do many.

My goals:

• more or less finish my tenure dossier so some light revising is all I have left to do in August (I have a thorough outline done so far.)
• read the novels I've assigned in a new history/French lit class this fall
• prepare my syllabi and supporting documents for the first days of classes (one class is almost done)
• prepare the major and/or new-to-me activities for my courses
• file the piles of papers I've accumulated
• catch up with reading the various magazines I've received the past year, especially the issues of The Language Educator (only one left!), The French Review and Foreign Language Annals
• tweak the formatting and submit an article on an Algerian film
• identify a journal and start formatting an article on an Algerian novel
• cook more (especially recipes I've clipped and saved with the intention to try them)
• Skype or facetime with some beloved friends I rarely get to see (did one a few weeks ago, good phone conversations with others recently so I'm making progress!)
• exercise at least 3 times per week (so far so good, I'm able to comfortably run again without knee pain)
• read for pleasure (working on La Peste [The Plague] by Albert Camus in print and The Little Paris Bookshop in audio)
• publicize the amazing final projects my students did this past semester. The constant cloud of promoting French and retaining students is exhausting and the topic of a separate post (reached out to some colleagues in marketing which will be a slow process.)

                                          Intermediate French journal from "trip" to France

                                     
                                      Planning and executing a francophone breakfast in 101