What is a Weekend?

As we slide toward the time of year when, for my friends still in academia, it all begins again, I pause for a short reflection on my current state in the universe. The remark by the Dowager Countess of Grantham about weekends seems to sum up the perspective I'm acquiring.



I was reminded recently that the students return to JMU about now and that put me to thinking about what I would normally be doing this time of August (shivers). Here, is it in the 70's and sunny ('tho it may rain finally this week). We've been to the beach and worn shorts in the winter, to the mountains and walked though a strangler fig, and never do I think about it really being August and what that means of the poor souls left behind toiling away.

We ask each other a couple times a week what day of the week it is because there is no longer a weekend. We go to the movies on Sunday evening because we no longer have to get ready to start the work week the following morning. We are mildly surprised on a Saturday where we go out for lunch since we forget that everyone else is not working that day. We forget to time out outings to avoid morning or afternoon traffic since it all the same to us.

This is not to say that we are sliding into an endless plain of sameness where one day is like every other. We are, rather, charging into an adventure where every day has the same potential. Everyday is now our weekend. We no longer think in two day/one night chunks of exploration. We are expanding our minds and seeing the world from a totally new perspective.

Certainly not the perspective of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, but one that puts us in a similarly enviable position.