The Dog Days

They have finally arrived. Those fantastic dog days of summer have finally hit and I must say, it is a little reassuring. Reassuring? How could it be reassuring Brian, you are probably asking yourselves, it is hot, dull and most of all it means the end of the summer is right around the corner...how could you possibly find that reassuring? Well imaginary third person, let me explain.

While these past few months have been an incredible series of highs and lows, going to Texas and the death of my Nana respectively, I never got comfortable in my summer skin. For the past year I have mainly been going to school, writing papers and doing research. When the summer finally hit, I was still enrolled in a summer course (communication consulting...which was superb by the way) and had plans to take a second course (never ended up taking it, that is a story of its own). I was still in grad school mode. Once the class ended and I started my summer work, consulting and selling crap on ebay, I felt slightly out of place. I was still doing research and writing up reports/memos/any and everything related to STEM (don't ask) but my workload had slowed down significantly.

For the first time in roughly a year, I really had no idea what to do with myself. I like to call this the grad school curse. My work load had been at such a high level for so long that when things slowed down, I got antsy and felt like I was being a lazy asshole. It was kind of like being a drug addict coming down from a high, except not so dramatic and sad (bad analogy but hey, it's something). I had completely forgotten how to just relax and do nothing. It actually pained me to not be writing papers. HOW MESSED UP IS THAT? So I turned to odd ways to pass the time. I began doing more work for my consulting gigs than was necessary. I began to sell things on ebay more for the time it ate up than for the need to make money. I started work on my thesis, which is due in roughly a year. I offered to help my friends look over their papers and began to edit things just for fun. Let me repeat that in a much angrier way...EDIT THINGS JUST FOR FUN. Most importantly, I began to annoy the hell out of my friends on a daily basis. Seriously, I was doing hours of work each day, roughly 40 hours a week, and still felt like a slacker. Only now, in hindsight, do I realize why I felt this way...and I didn't like the answer.

Conditioning. Conditioning messed up my summer in a bad bad way. For so long I had been conditioned to work as hard as humanly possible on any project that crossed my path, academic or otherwise, that when things slowed down my mind flipped out. Instead of being able to relax, I started to try and fill in the quiet moments of my day with busywork. It actually stressed me out to try and relax. Anything productive to keep myself occupied was a relief from my supposed relief. So as the summer winds down all I can feel is joy that school starts up again at the end of the month. I will be teaching for the first time, I am enrolled in three classes and I have a few projects on my plate that could get me to conferences or published. In other words, I will be completely swamped for the next 4 months with work, research and teaching. In a very sick sort of way, this is just what I needed. A vacation from my vacation, stress relief through the most stressing of situations. So leave me alone grad school curse, you will be assuaged again soon enough.

*Note*- Yes, I am sort of complaining about having free time but believe me when I say that I wish I could just enjoy my downtime. This is the last thing I wanted and it kind of scares me that I am wired for stress.