A few students wishing me well for a nice summer break. Just spent the morning pulling together a plan for next semester's teaching and I have nearly 80 hours of 'structured' material to prepare by October.

This is on top of this year's ongoing workload, which includes supervision of four master's dissertations. I also have three PhD students who are coming to the end of their time in the lab and one due to submit in September.

I have about 21 clear work days with full childcare over the summer break. So I need to prep four hours of the new material per day. To me this seems like a mammoth task to deliver an 'acceptable' level of education for the students I work with.

I'll acknowledge my immense privilege here: My teaching workload is only slightly above average for my school, I can access childcare, I'm healthy, I have a decent space to work, @Lis_Lowe is amazingly supportive.