Athena: Rhythms

Dear Augustine,

One of the things that I love most about school--both as a student and as a teacher--is the natural rhythm it gives to the year. Busy and slow seasons. Crunch periods where you get overwhelmed by the amount of work that seems to be squished into two weeks--and then you hit a break. Maybe it's a long weekend, or a week or two of vacation, or finally--blessedly--summer vacation.

They keep you sane. I mean, the downside is that you don't get to choose your vacations--and it makes traveling anywhere popular difficult and super-pricey, but I think if I got to choose my own vacation times, I'd have a hard time choosing exactly when. Plus, the added bonus of my current job is that while I get less summer vacation time, I can travel easily and just take my work with me. :)

Somehow, it always seems like vacations come just at the right time--and I've finally reached Thanksgiving break, which means that I get three extra days in addition to my weekend...but also reminds me that it's a quick trip through the last few weeks before Christmas. Really, there are only three full weeks after this before we begin our two-week Christmas break.

It's time to rest and recuperate. I may need to go off social media for a few days to avoid politics...but that would also mean missing out on many things I do love [mainly Tumblr. I could do without Facebook and Twitter, and may do that, but my Tumblr dash is full of a lot of hurting, grieving people right now [along with me.]

I'm hoping to read tomorrow and Friday, because I don't have to worry about pushing everything into just a short weekend. I'll probably sleep really late too. Then Thanksgiving celebrations Thursday and Saturday, which will be a nice time [hopefully] with family.

I hope that both your Thanksgiving and your time off is treating you well. (And that you're continuing to recover).

+Athena