The Night before Summer

I feel that tonight is the last night of finishing out the first year of my doctoral program. I have finished all the papers, projects, and presentations; I went to all the end of the year parties and events for my department; I just logged my final bibliographic annotation to Foucault's The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, my last self-assigned reading for the school year. I am ready for this summer.

Tomorrow I head back to Rhode Island to begin summer vacation. I hope not to jinx myself but I feel this will be a much improved upon summer than last year. To be honest, I spent about 95% of last July and August...and ok September, October, November, and December, hurting over the end of a long relationship.

I'm not all better...but I'm getting there.

I will be heading to Chicago at the end of this month to attend The Sixth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. There are hundreds of intelligent, dynamic, thought-provoking people presenting their work, which I hope will be inspiring for my own studies. I am also partaking in a Performance Ethnography workshop led by Norman Denzin, a man I have only heard and read the best things about.

I will return from the congress and soon after leave for Sanremo, Italy for the entire month of June. I will be teaching English workshops here, as well as living with a host Italian family. My nights and weekends are free to travel. As for right now my only real must see in Italy is Venice, with the possibility of Rome as well. Anything else that comes up, as long as it involves Italian food, espresso, gellato, outdoor cafes and wine, I am good to go.

When I return from Italy I will head back to Amherst to begin what is called an Intensive Intermediate Spanish course offered at my university. Although I did acquire a bit of Spanish living in Mexico, I have never been formally instructed in the language. I think knowing all the formalities of Spanish will be really beneficial for my dissertation.

My brother and his wife will also be visiting in July; riding my bike; my very good friend Fatima will be moving back to NYC; cookouts; I get to meet my friend Kerri's baby boy; watching Veronica Mars and Glee; Amy is getting a new apartment; my puppy is getting his first haircut; the beach; I am looking forward to all of these things as well.

As I said, this night marks a special night of completion for me. When I started this doctoral program I was an absolute wreck. I feel pretty grounded these days and that speaks more than words on a page can say. I am congratulating myself for a school year well done and for making it through a tough one at that.

I am going to end this blog entry by quoting the great musical artist Will Smith, "give me a soft subtle mix and if ain't broke then don't try to fix it and think of the summers of the past adjust the base and let the alpine blast pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme and put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime.