What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Hello.

The last time I wrote was June 13th. That was a while ago. Now I'm facing September and thought I'd write again, this time telling you what I did on my summer vacation.

Let's see...I traveled far and wide every day. I dabbled in another culture, specifically the Spanish and Greek Culture. I explored new and interesting ideas of human interactions and collected numerous artifacts regarding them.

Sounds, exotic and fun doesn't it?

It was, and in reality, I spent my entire summer executing my summer semesters (2 of them) towards my Childhood Education (1-6) Masters of Science in Teaching degree. It was a busy summer...to say the least.

What was my traveling far and wide? I had the opportunity to travel the NYS Northway interstate at different times of the day, in torrential rainstorms and beautiful sunny afternoons and lovely starlit nights, listening to music from different genres and sharing conversations with my carpooling friend.

What was my "cultural" experience? I completed my language requirement in Spanish. It was an independent study with a very intelligent and committed Spanish professor. She and I spent numerous hours discussing Spanish culture, conjugation and grammar articles (sounds kinky-huh?). Actually, it was very enlightening and if I wasn't so crammed for time, I would have liked to mosey around the language a little longer.

As part of a Social Studies methods course, I was assigned the Golden Age of Greece as a unit course plan. I spent all of June researching Greece, it's history, culture and influence on the world at large. It was very interesting and again, had I more time, I would have dabbled more in depth. One thing I decided was to put Greece on my "must see" list, when I become gainfully employed and have summer vacations.

I also took a Mathematics and Science methods class. And I took three mandatory NYS teacher's certification exams. That pretty much rounded out my "human interactions" portion of summer vacation.

The "numerous artifacts" I've collected consist of many lesson plans, papers and test results, added to my portfolio of learning.

And if that doesn't sound like a full and interesting summer vacation, I get to add my wonderful physical therapy patients I visited daily, and my time at the playground with my youngest son, and my time spent preparing my three oldest children for their flight from the nest.

Yup, all three of my eldest children have left my nest~well actually two down to date, and one to go next week. The upcoming departure didn't leave the back of my head all summer. When I was sitting in classes in June, July and August, I thought of them. As I sat waiting to take my state exams, I thought of them. My thoughts of how quickly it all went by plagued the corners of my mind. Telling my classmates with young kids to enjoy their moments together with their little ones "because it comes to an end quicker than you'd imagine," rang from my lips often. Pondering about what the landscape of my life will look like once they were gone, repeatedly passed through my brain like a continuous scroll at the bottom of one's television screen.

It has been a full summer vacation.

Now I face the Autumn season with new challenges ahead of me; new courses, new human interactions, and hopefully at the end of it, a degree in education and a return of my kids for the winter holidays.

And all of it will be good.

I hope your summer vacation brought you to new cultural experiences; that you had time to learn something you didn't already know about people from other places.

I hope your summer vacation gave you a chance to interact with people who had a common purpose with you in which you could exchange ideas and broaden you knowledge base.

I hope your summer brought you a chance to reflect on time, and sort through memories of those who mean much to you.

If so...then you too, had a full and interesting summer.

Now it's time for the next season of our lives. We'll never get summer 2008 back again. I hope yours, as was mine, was time not wasted and experiences greatly gained.

Have Hope,
Donna