With only four days of school left, none of which are really going to count for a damned thing– three days of babysitting and grade finalization and then a field day– it’s time to think about how I’m going to get through the summer without turning into a greasy lump. Since we all know I will turn into a greasy lump over the summer, let’s set some goals that I can feel bad about not fulfilling. Note that, for the most part, these are weekday goals; on weekends I still get to laze about.

• Up by 9:00 AM every day. This actually won’t be that hard, as my body chemistry is finally starting to alter in such a way that I’m waking up earlier than this even if I don’t want to. I have tried to sleep past 8 AM for the last two days and not managed to do it. No, this is going to be the hard one:
• In the shower within 20 minutes of waking up every day. The way my brain works, my day can’t start and I can’t do anything until I take a shower. The goal here is to have Things to Do and to Get Things Done. This means I need to bathe immediately, or close to it, every morning. I manage to do this every day during the week when school is in session and there’s no reason, or at least no good reason, why I can’t continue doing it over the summer. That said, I’ll be genuinely surprised if I manage to make it a week. Hell, I’ll be surprised if I pull it off on the first Monday of break.
• Get licensed for high school math. This has a number of sub-goals. In case you’re not aware, I have a chance of being able to teach Honors Geometry next year, but in order to do that, I have to be certified to teach it, and as it’s a high school class and my math licensure is 5-9, I’m not. Therefore:
• Pass the 5165 Mathematics Praxis Exam. Which I am currently not even remotely qualified for. I’m hoping to have this done by July 1. That should give me enough time to get the paperwork through the state board by the time school starts, even if I don’t pass on the first try. However in order to do that, I have to:
• Study math for an hour a day, preferably in the mornings, after my coffee. I’m allowing myself some lounge time after getting out of the shower. Go sit in my chair in the library or on the back porch, drink a cup of coffee, idly fuck around on the web or read a book. But I want to spend an hour stuffing math into my brain each day. Right now the tentative plan is to take a practice test on the Monday after break to see just how far I have to go and see if an hour is realistic or I need more than that. That’s 20 hours of study during June for three years of high school math. One course a week plus some flex time. Sure, I can do that, right? I taught myself enough German to pass an exam in three days. I just need — heh– to be disciplined and to remember how to study.
• Actual Arabic study, using some of the print resources I’ve purchased and haven’t paid much attention to. The apps have their place– which reminds me that I haven’t talked about an excellent vocabulary app I found– but I need some sustained grammar work and the apps genuinely don’t care about that.
• Find some projects around the house. Stand by; we’ll see. There are tons of things I could be doing.
• Maybe a part-time WFH job if I can find one. I don’t need more money, but if I could make enough to get this new computer completely paid for by the end of the summer that would make a lot of things easier. I need to remember that the overage pay goes away in a couple of paychecks. That’s not a problem– I was doing fine before I had it and I’ll be fine after it– but I’ll need to get a little more disciplined financially again. Luckily, summer is cheaper than the rest of the year most of the time.
• Get the boy off the fucking couch. He will transform into a greasy lump if I let him– greasier than ever before, in fact, since he’s going to be a teenager in a few months and his Greasy Years are coming– and I should probably treat him like I’m his dad and not, like, a creepily older roommate who lives in the back office studying esoteric mathematics and languages he will never speak to anyone. He will literally spend the whole summer playing video games and watching YouTube if I let him; I should probably find a way to encourage other activities, even if that’s just making sure he has friends over every so often so that he interacts directly with people.

And, because not everything has to be serious:

• I have video games to beat. I spend significantly less time on the PS5 since I turned off the YouTube channel, but I’ve developed this vexing habit where I play 90% of a game and then abandon it for something else, which means that I’ve got this vile backlog of games that I want to get off my plate and haven’t yet. Some of them are never going to happen– I’m looking at you, Baldur’s Gate III— but several of them are games I enjoyed and just got distracted by the next shiny. Literally all I have to do in the new Prince of Persia is beat the final boss! That’s, like, an hour or two! I can do this!
• Reeeeeeeeead. Still making progress but God damn it I want the unread shelf cleared by the end of June. I can do this. I will do this. This is actually the thing on this list most likely to actually happen.

What about you? Any big summer plans?