Opinions of a Wolf

A seagull at Revere Beach.

Hello my lovely readers!

August is always a bit of a tough month for me, because it’s when the students arrive back at my university.  I wind up teaching a lot of orientation classes and also just flat-out am much busier doing one-on-one orientations to the library.  While I truly enjoy teaching, I’m also an introvert and, thus, interactions with people drain me of energy, so I come home and collapse in exhaustion at the end of these days.  A friend who also works in academia joked that everyone in academia runs around for the month of August yelling, “The students are coming! The students are coming!” in a Paul Revere voice. Very true.

I also, unfortunately, had to have a medical procedure this month.  My dentist deemed it necessary for my wisdom teeth to come out as soon as possible, so I managed to find the one slow week at work and booked the appointment to get them ripped out.  I only had three wisdom teeth, the fourth never developed (yay for being 25% more evolved woooo).  They were all fully erupted, though (fully came in, not impacted).  The procedure, thus, was quick and simple, although it still was bloody and painful, and I had to convalesce for a few days.  The worst part, by far, was having to eat soft foods for a minimum of 3 days.  I work out a lot and am a hungry panda and frankly I just like crunching things.  I was very happy to be back to eating!  My partner took great care of me, and I laid around watching old movies and playing Harvest Moon while I was recuperating.

This month wasn’t all difficulty and stress, though.  It was also mine and my boyfriend’s first anniversary!  We went away for an evening to an inn in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.  Our room had a two-person hot tub and was truly divine.  Plus, the inn had 5 star dining, and my partner called ahead and told them I’m vegetarian, so the chef prepared a full 4 courses of vegetarian options for me, which was the first time I ever got to actually have 5 star food.  He’s so thoughtful.  🙂  It was so wonderful to get to actually get away to celebrate our first anniversary.  I’m glad we were able to get out of the city, even for one night, but I’m even more grateful to have found my partner. 😀

We also finally got a chance to go to the beach.  We went to America’s first public beach, Revere.  We took the motorcycle there, and stripping out of motorcycle gear down to a bikini underneath was hilariously awesome.  I was really impressed at how nice Revere Beach is!! It has a lovely boardwalk and plenty of room for how popular it is.  Everyone was nice and polite, and it was wonderfully relaxing.  We’re going to have to plan more 2up beach trips in the future 🙂

As for the blog, I managed to mostly catch up in book reviews.  I now am only one review behind! Woohoo!

As for my writerly pursuits, I’ve figured out a method to work more writing into my day, and I’m really glad to be back in the saddle.  It helps, of course, that my partner and I are now living together.  It’s so much easier to plan for things when you’re taking care of one house instead of two.

How was everyone else’s Augusts?  What was your biggest stress and your best relaxer?

*waves*