The calendar and thermometer have been arguing about whether it’s really spring here in northeast Wisconsin. The calendar, who happened to major in English, has already written this year’s story and insists that we are just a Memorial Day away from unofficial summer. The thermometer, a math geek, sees the world in numbers, and kindly pointed out this morning that the number at 6 a.m. was 36 degrees. My heart is with the calendar, but my feet side with the thermometer.

Be that as it may, could, would, or should, my school semester has ended, the papers and tests have been marked, and the grades put in. Now that I am no longer  teaching, you could say I was “classless.” (And you would not be the only one to say so.) For the next two months I plan to read, write, loll around, dither, wander and meander, and practice retirement.

 

However, since I believe that you’re never too old to learn something new, or too young to learn something old, or even too new to know now what you didn’t know then, I am looking into summer classes that I will not only enjoy but will also be able to apply toward maintaining my certification credentials.

 

(The 56-word sentence above, masquerading as a paragraph, gives me secret pleasure because while I don’t allow my students to get away with that kind of writing, I let myself get away with it. We teachers get our pleasures where we can.)

 

I found one writing class, which satisfies both my interest and my certification needs, but I have been hoping for another. So far I haven’t found anything, but I did create a wish list of classes I would be interested in.

 

• Risk Management and Interplanetary Scandinavian Studies

 

• Therapeutic Zoological Phonemes in the Writing of Dr. Seuss

 

• Urban Uterine Ultrasound Graffiti

 

• Astro-Psychology of Real and Unreal Estate

 

• Obstetrics Music Performance

• Electrical Entomology

• Microscopic Macro Studies in Micro-Linguistic Microcosmic Microwave Microchips in Microbiology

 

• Slavic Plant Pathology and Philosophy

 

• Genealogical Genomes in Gender Genuflection

 

• Ethics of Folkloric and Gnomic Engineering

 

• Bovine Dance Studies

 

• Collaborative Dolphin Engineering

• Chicana/o Environmental Accounting Literature

 

• Art History of Post-modern Horseshoes

If I can’t find anything else this summer, I guess I will have to wait until next year when I am classless once more.

 Classroom Photo