Freedom, Vacation, and Compulsion

Compared to my friends on the tenure track, my deal isn't as sweet, but compared to my friends suffering through the adjunctification of academia, my life is pretty damn good.  So, I finished reading and grading 60 final portfolios two days ago after reading 60 advocacy projects the week before, which means I'm now free until classes start in the fall.  That's to say, I'm fucking free for a few months!

Last summer, I made the colossal mistake of playing it by ear, which got me dropped in a wormhole.  One minute I was playing video games obsessively on my PS4 without a care in the world, spending my free time mindlessly like a rich baron, then my fam came up for a long weekend, then LB's fam came from Chicago, then LB and I went to Scandinavia, and then the next thing I knew, my summer vacay was fucking gone.  Suddenly, I was psychologically preparing myself for another year of teaching, my first paid summer just a tiny dot in my rear-view mirror.  This summer, I vow (strong word, I know, but I mean it) to not let this summer slip by.  Yes, I'll sleep in and enjoy my time off like a profligate Beverly Hills lawyer watering his lawn obsessively but this time I want to find a good compromise between wasting the summer away and scheduling the shit out of it. 

These are my goals for this summer:

1.  Play the second and third Unchartered Remastered Nate Drake games and remember why I was once so obsessed with Indiana Jones as a kid (well, minus the Temple of Doom, that one totally sucked)

2.  Play Final Fantasy X-II in time for the epic release of Final Fantasy XV that was supposed to come out like ten years ago

3.  Finally play Raymond Legends (it's been in my wishlist for years now)

4.  Begin working on my second LP, which will be mostly post-rock instrumental music (piano, strings, and some beats)

5.  Since LB and I will be back in Vienna this summer for a few days, I'd like to study German this summer

6.  Study 日本語

7.  Run three times a week, lift weights twice a week, and possibly (but not realistically) take a spinning class

8.  If a manuscript of mine gets accepted for publication soon inshallah, then revise that for much of the summer first and foremost (still waiting to hear back from a few presses).  Either way, revise my manuscripts and work on my third novel

9.  Submit short stories and lyrical essays to journals

10.  Invest in my wardrobe some more because you know, I don't already have enough excuses to buy shit online (or enough button downs, for that matter)

11.  Meditate regularly

12.  Stop going to be bed at 4 in the morning

13.  Get some new ink on my right arm

14.  Blog more often

15.  Read the complete graphic novel series about the Shōwa period by Shigeru Mizuki

16.  Read 1-2 books by Susan Sontag

17.  Read another novel by Zadie Smith

18.  Read another novel by Salman Rushdie

19.  (Re)-read one "big book" this summer:  the choices are DFW's Infinite Jest, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, Ulysses by James Joyce, or Underworld by Don Delillo.

20.  Finally read Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist

21.  I know this is a stereotypical LA thing to do, but maybe whiten my teeth because I drink so much fucking tea, it's ridiculous

22.  Stop making so many damn lists . . ..