September Is the Cruelest Month
Seriously: forget April.
September hereabouts brings together the end of summer (as in the always-insane beginning of the fall semester, in which the red [i.e., meetings] takes over my iCal) with the onset of the worst of summer (as in temperatures verging on 110 degrees). Fortunately, the heat wave of the first week of classes didn’t last long, and things are actually quite nice now, weather-wise. But I am just barely hanging on in terms of keeping up with the deadlines that are coming fast and furious, keeping my classes up to speed, keeping a handle on my physical well-being. Already, two weeks into the semester, I’m waking up exhausted every single morning.
I should know by now that this is just the way things are, that the semester always starts more painfully than I expect, but somehow I keep thinking to myself that this year will be different, that I’ll be better organized, that I’ll be able to keep up with the projects I started over the summer, that — imagine this — I’ll still have thoughts interesting enough to bother with blogging. Needless to say, that hasn’t happened this year, but I’m trying to remain positive: perhaps the second half of September will be better, once the end of summer is really met by the onset of fall.


15 September 2007, 10.06 am
Much shared empathy on this - for a number of reasons, this Sept. has risen to new heights of cruelty for me, with my to-do pile seeming to double daily. I don’t know how much it helps to know that you are not alone in stress, but you’re in good company…
16 September 2007, 9.09 pm
You mean this will happen every year for the rest of my professional life?
I should see if I can get a seasonal Prozac prescription.