As the temperature outside climbs toward the 90s and I sit here munching on my dad’s homemade (and delicious) cucumber salad, I realize well—summer really is here. To be honest, I prefer the quiet, laid back atmosphere of Montevallo in the summer to the more crowded busyness of the fall and spring semesters (although the heat and humidity I could do without). And what’s more is that unlike last summer, in which I filled my summer schedule with classes in an effort to get some coursework out of the way, this summer I’m wide open aside from work.
Fritz essentially has his summer plans down: find sunny spot; sleep; occasionally wake to complain about the neighborhood strays who camp out on the porch; repeat.
Summer Yoga for Kitties
But I’ve been debating for myself: what to do with all this unheard-of free time?
When in the throes of this past very arduous school year, I would dream of having the time to exercise a little creativity. On weekends I found myself procrastinating on homework by playing music—something that until recently I’d had a hard time enjoying again. (I should also point out the interesting fact that when I was a music student, I’d put off practicing or composing by doing, well, anything.) I even worked it into schoolwork whenever possible, such as this reimagining of a Gilbert and Sullivan classic for my Biological Psychology class:
(It seems my video’s view count has benefited heavily from a lack of many YouTube search results for “corpus callosotomy” or “commissurotomy.” SCORE ONE FOR A CHEAP PATH TO THE TOP.)
So it’s tempting to me to declare this a Summer o’ Artsy Fartsy-ness, spending my evenings and weekends either recording music or brushing up on long unused drawing skills or of course, writing here. :)
As much fun as that sounds, more practically, I should spend my time preparing for that most dreaded of tests: the GRE. I’ve opted to take the newly revised version of the test in August because it was 50% off and there’s no way in hell I’m paying $180 to take a test because it was the best choice for me academically. I’ll also have to take the subject test in psychology this fall. All of this with the goal of making it to graduate school, the most holy of nerd meccas.
Typical Daydream of a Perpetual Student
But alas, while creativity and practicality are each appealing, both fall prey to that burster of ambitiousness bubbles we’re all too familiar with: reality. And folks, the reality is that any Joie, given unlimited free time and finite funds, will choose to burn that time away on the Internet, movies, and video games. But no! I must resist…
…Hmm, actually, that doesn’t sound like a half-bad summer… And I mean, I could really go for a nap right now… Couldn’t hurt, right? I can always student or record music tomorrow…
