The Summer of Great Endeavors

In recent years I’ve looked forward to summer for the chance to enjoy the nature that surrounds me here in Kansas City and spend more time walking around the neighborhood, going to the Zoo, and maybe taking a road trip somewhere I wouldn’t normally go. This summer, with all that intended, I instead found myself by a particular series of circumstances working hard on several large projects at once. These include two online classes for Barstow Global Online, an entire rewrite of my dissertation, and now lesson planning for the first semester of my work teaching all three grades of middle school social studies. To quote the Princess Bride’s ever charming Prince Humperdinck, “I’m swamped.” So, what began as a summer where I looked forward to good exercise, long sunny days listening to the birds, and fine weather has turned into yet another season of work.

This summer of great endeavors certainly feels like a point of transition in my life, a time when the abilities and ideas that I know I have will prove themselves in the Sisyphean efforts I’m undertaking. I’ve learned in my thirty years that as much work as a writer like myself does, it’s always a gamble if any of that will pay off with readers who stick around week to week. My hope then, for this summer’s harvest, is that it will reap many memories of what I’ve accomplished come September for years to come.

Oh Lord, a few extra weeks would be nice. Thanks in advance.

Seán Kane is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Binghamton University in Upstate New York living back at home in Kansas City, Missouri. His dissertation is now titled "André Thevet's Brazil in Sixteenth-Century Natural History."