Last weekend was Easter weekend. For many people, it was a 3-day long weekend, and for some lucky folks, it was a 4-day weekend. If you’re an academic, though, chances are you didn’t have much of a weekend at all. Sure, you might have gone back to your parents’ place for dinner or an over-nighter. You might have put your feet up and finally had a chance to watch that Slumdog Millionaire DVD you picked up. But you might have just used your weekend in the way that academics often do: to work or to worry.
I can tell you with total honesty and sincerity that one of the greatest pleasures I experienced when I started my little joe job after I finished my Ph.D. was the weekend. It was actual me time (which is funny to think about, now that I’m a mom) that I could spend in any way I wanted without guilt. I could go for walks or watch TV or cook or read or hang out with friends and not have a monkey on my back. I could just breathe more easily, knowing that I was doing these things for their own sake, rather than as a pleasant diversion from the dissertation. It was a completely different way to live, and it took me months to really take weekends for granted (the way I do now).
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