Prelude to Summer

Yesterday marked the end of the spring semester, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m still on call as a TA, as there may be a couple of late papers that will make their way in during the week and need to be graded. But other than that, I am done.

What’s on the agenda for summer 2013? I wish I knew. I’ve been promised a TA-ship, but I have no idea which half of the summer it will involve. If it’s the first half of the summer, I’ll be back on campus, five days a week, starting on May 13th. That’s less than two weeks away. Alternatively, I’ll start on June 24th. That’s a big difference, and it’s irksome that I still have no idea what to expect. If I don’t start until near the end of June, it’s going to be a bit late for me to work out any travel arrangements for the first part of the summer. Not that Melanie and I are 100% certain to do any traveling. We haven’t talked about it too much yet, which is unusual. There was some talk a while back about going home to Utah. But for whatever reason, we haven’t discussed it recently. Probably because there’s no point to discussing it until we know when I’m available to travel! See how this works?

Regardless of what happens, I’ll need to spend the next week or so doing some good work on my dissertation. I think my committee chair probably needs a reminder that I’m still alive and a part of the PhD program. Tonight, however, we’re going to cut a little bit loose as a family and order some pizza and stream a movie from Netflix. On a Tuesday. This is living, folks! We’re also gearing up for Peter’s 5th birthday, which is only a couple of days away. I’m sincerely excited for it. We’ll have a family celebration on his actual birthday and then have a birthday party with friends on Saturday morning. It’s going to be dinosaur-themed. It should be fun.

That’s it, I’m done.