Why summer is excellent

Some not very gentle suggestions about making it even better

Hello darlings!

I hope everyone is kicking ass and taking names (or at least one of those two. It is a lot to expect with <waves arms> all this going on).

First, I just want to say how incredibly sad I am about the death of Raul Pacheco-Vega. Raul was a delightful human who believed deeply in providing public goods for academia and in remedying deep inequalities. And he backed his beliefs up with an enormous amount of time and energy in his research, his blog and social media presence. He and I once joked that his blog and MHAWS were the political science long form equivalents of the angel and devil on your shoulders. Now what I am supposed to do… be NICE? Raul, rest in power. We miss you.

It’s summer! (for us in the Northern Hemisphere). Which means -- like all teachers -- that we are totally not working and just laying around eating bonbons and watching our stories. (or so people seem to believe!) In reality, many academics look forward to the summer all year long because it feels like we can finally do the parts of our job that we are most excited about / make progress / live our full fucking academic lives of the mind. Why is summer so good? And how can you make it even better?

People leave us the fuck alone

Summer is the point where many of us (not all of us!) can go extended periods without having to be somewhere to do something for someone. We own our own time. This means that we can stretch out, spend time in and out of research projects, and generally just let our minds rest and get away from the constant crisis mode that many of us face during the semester.

But what if your summer isn’t like this? I just want you to stop checking your fucking email. Please. Stop. Find another way to spend your time. You have permission to write “Mirya said stop checking your fucking email” on a post-it note and stick it on your computer monitor and look at it every day.

We have longer stretches of time to do research

Speaking of extended periods – one of the reasons that people love summer is that we get larger blocks of time to do just our research! The deep thinking guy drives me nuts for a variety reasons relating to my resentment towards people who don’t understand inequality in resources and the consequences for many of us, but I agree that we need time to just fucking THINK in our jobs. Summer gives that to us! Wahoo! So how can we construct our days / weeks / months / lives so that we have carved out these pockets? How long of a pocket do we actually need? And how can we take advantage of

We take care of ourselves

Summer is the time for us to move our bodies and cook elaborate meals and hang with friends and nap in a pile of rose petals and go to the doctor’s office and everything else we cannot find time for during the busy semester. Do more of this. Do all of this. Walk or run or swim or whatever. Take time off. Nap every day (please ask me about this, I love to talk about napping and how I trained myself to nap and how it is has made my life so much better. Please. I’m not joking.)

Obviously, you can do all these things during the semester. Maybe you do! Amazing. (I don’t believe you). I certainly don’t accomplish all this with regularity during the semester. But maybe this year I can bring this big summer is for self care vibe into the fall? I should definitely set some goals about that.

Summer is the time to stop fucking bullshitting yourself.

Summer is also the time when all the excuses for why we don’t fucking write fall away. Oh I have class. Nope. Ooooh this service. No, shut up. Oh I got an important email! NO YOU FUCKING DID NOT. All of that is bullshit year round but it is particularly a load of crap during the summer.

I LOVE this energy from Joy Sullivan. Are you a writer or a white collar worker who writes fucking emails? Get to fucking work. (shot of whiskey and/or cry recommended but not necessary in my experience).

We have time to experiment and play and fail

One of my goals every summer is to challenge an assumption that I have about my work life. I write best in the mornings. But do I? How do I know? (This one I was right about!) I need to work on something for at least 3 hours before I really can get into it. (absolutely not, in fact I do better if I switch tasks after 2 hours). Big goals are important to me and help me succeed! (Yes, this is actually true. Although less powerful than I anticipated. I didn’t, like, just stop working). This summer, I’m taking on time blocking. What I just use a daily to do list instead? What if I just let vibes guide me?

You might ask yourself: Mirya, why the fuck would you do this? Well, I strongly believe that most of our beliefs about ourselves are untested hypotheses and that we are too afraid of risk to actually test them. Summer gives us the time, space, whatever to see: am I actually someone who needs to write out notes longhand or do I just need to not have access to wifi? Do I really hate writing conference papers or am I just a procrastinator and these two things are associated with each other? This summer, take a fucking risk, and learn something about yourself.

If you are at ECPG or EPSS, please say hi! I have a limited set of swag with me and I’d love to give it to you!

XOXOX

Mirya