The End is Nigh

Well, the end of the summer, anyway. Or this fleeting phenomenon some call ‘summer vacation.’

Honestly, I’m not sure what people are talking about when they talk about vacations. Apparently, people get ‘time off’ to ‘relax.’

Have you heard of this?

Regardless, I got back from three and a half weeks of field work on Thursday. Spent Friday night through this afternoon helping with a fabulous wedding (set-up to tear down), and am now suddenly acutely aware that classes begin in two weeks.

Well, crap. I’m not even prepared.

Sure, I’ve taught the class before. But the lab classroom needs to be cleaned up. Exercises need to be planned. The syllabus needs to be written. And e-mails from students are already hitting my mailbox.

And this has to be done while I do the annual maintenance on the mass spectrometer and try to get caught up on all the analyses that didn’t get done over the last four weeks.

Gasp.

Panic is crawling into my chest.

I can do this. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.

First things first. I have to get up and go into the office tomorrow. After that, it’ll be smooth sailing.

Right?