Like most teachers, I love the summer. It’s a time for rest, rejuvenation, and refocusing. I won’t whine about the “Myth of the Teacher’s Easy Summer” — certainly many of my colleagues work very hard planning for the next school year, taking classes, participating in committees, and engaging in all the behind-the-scenes effort that keeps our educational system running year-round. Instead, I’m going to take a moment to extol my gratitude for having a chance to shift gears, if not fully be idle.
On that note, here are my main goals for Summer 2021:
- Enjoy Family Time
This has been my primary summer goal for the past decade. I love teaching — I love the purpose my job gives me, the opportunities to be creative, the chance to nurture curiosity and learn from the younger generations. Like every job, though it takes up a lot of time, and often that means I have less time with my family.
So my number one goal is to use this brief, glorious window called summer to go on vacations with the fam, but also just to spend quiet mornings with my kids, to play outside on sunny afternoons, to take walks and ride bikes and have movie nights on a whim. (If this sounds even remotely like bragging, let me promise you this: I am saying this mostly to remind myself to enjoy this time, because I know there’s going to be tantrums and messes and fighting and tidal waves of sass sweeping through my household this summer. I am trying to remind myself to look forward even to that, because as much as I dread those moments, they won’t last.)
2. WRITE! 😀
Over the past decade, I’ve become very much a creature of habit. I like routines — they protect me from the awful paralysis of having to decide what I’m going to do in any given moment.
That said, I’m very eager to not only continue the writing habits I’ve established these past few months, but doubling down on them. I’ve gotten much better at fitting “Writing Time” around my other priorities, and I’ve discovered that I write more when I put less pressure on myself to write something specific. That means I’ll use my early mornings and late evenings, and long drives in between to write, so that I’m not sitting in front of my computer in the middle of the day, making minimal progress, while my actual life is going on around me. I announced my specific writing goals in my last post, and I’ll continue to revisit them during the summer. All I’ll add is this: I plan to get at least one whole book finished this summer, because I failed to do so last summer. HOLD ME TO IT! 🤨
3. Stay Healthy
Eat better, stay active, enjoy time with others. In all areas, maintain balance. That is all.
M. J. Lau 