I played golf for the first time in two years yesterday (shot a 98 and broke a 3-iron). It was a neighborhood Labor Day outing. Over the course of the round, I was asked a variation of every academics pet peeve question (by at least 5 different people): When do you start working again?
After doing this for 14 years, I've given up trying to explain that being a professor is different than being a teacher. That's not to say that being a professor is any harder than being a teacher (there's no way I could put up with the copious amounts of snot that teachers do), it's just different. In particular, we don't have our summers off. So when asked the question: When do you start working again? I control my indignation and just give the date of the start of the fall quarter: September 21.
But between now and then I have to:
- Read and prepare for 3 dissertation proposal defenses.
- Revise and prepare for submission at least (hopefully) 3 papers.
- Write at least two book chapters that I have (predictably) procrastinated on.
- Prepare a proposal for revising our Master's degree program.
- Start working on the second edition of Valuing Environmental And Natural Resources, which was promised to the publisher almost 2 years ago.
- Finalize a report on [removed for fear of creating a panic] in the department.
- Read a proposed plan of study by a PhD student so I can decide whether to take him on as an advisee
- Read and comment on 2 (>100 page) dissertation drafts.
- Write 2 extternal letters of review for promotion and tenure cases.
- Gently guide the research of my two PhD advisees.
- Prepare to serve on a panel at the Ohio State Farm Science Review on climate change and cap'n trade.
- Try (and fail) to stay up to date on new research.
- Maintain my senses of humor and perspective so I can continue to entertain the masses here on www.env-econ.net.
So when do I start working again?
Right friggin' now.