Out of the loop

That's what it feels like since I'm not getting ready for fall semester. I realized this obvious thing in a BIG way after I listened to a bunch of colleagues at the Happy Gnome tonight for a reading sponsored by Phantasmagoria, our college's literary publication (not a student publication). After the excellent prose readings (Cheri Johnson, Greg Mulcahy, Thaddeus Rutkowski - if I could add links to this post using the computer I'm on, I would - sorry), I chatted with my pal from the English department and our college president. Or, rather, I listened because I don't really have that much to say because I'm on sabbatical! I'm having a hard time getting my sense-of-self to correspond to my sabbatical state since it's the first I've had in over twenty years of teaching. My teaching identity is one I've had longer than my mom identity - so part of my sabbatical will be finding out who I am when I'm not a teacher!