The various meanings of "August"

We have officially made it to the month of August!!  Where as this year gone??  I remember my parents telling me that life goes by so much quicker the older you get; sadly, they did not lie (even though growing up we'd swear our parents were always wrong...).  Every year, I hate when the corporate calendars are released and you see the time off the national holidays that they are going to recognize this year, secretly hoping America adopts the same holidays that Norway does so we can have 20+ days off.  You look at it and realize that the first three-day weekend isn't until Memorial Day and you think to yourself Am I ever going to make it to May?  May seems like FOREVER away when it is January 2nd and you are just getting back from the holidays.  Welp, May did come, and so did 4th of July, and now we are in August!!  But that doesn't really mean much to those of us with corporate jobs where we work year-round.  It just means we are one month closer to September where we get our second three-day weekend for Labor Day!  Oh joy.  Depending on where you are in life, August has quite a different meaning...

In Elementary, Junior High, and High School, August meant the end of summer.  The end of kick-the-can and Ghost in the Graveyard.  The end of 12-hour days at the community pool having both lunch and dinner at the snack bar.  It meant all the slacking and procrastinating you had done all summer was catching up with you, and it was time to start that totally uninspiring summer reading book; or worse, the summer math packet, both of which resulted in some sort of an idiosyncratic response!  What the heck was that about??  Summer reading was one thing that totally sucked.  But a summer math packet?!  That was hell on earth!  I remember we would all get to school that first day, we'd meet in the Wood Commons and the panicked copying would commence.  Stupid math packets.  At that age, August meant the end of fun, and the start of class, homework, and tests; 9-mos of shear and utter pain.

Then, in college, August meant something wonderful!  August meant you no longer had to hang out in your parents' basement if you were under 21.  It meant your summer internship (aka: the worst thing ever) was over and you could return to your happy place - COLLEGE!!  There were no summer reading books in college (or at least I didn't read them).  There were no summer math packets in college.  Going back to school meant your freedom!  It meant bars!  And frat parties!  And tailgates!  And the best thing of all...SYLLABUS WEEK!  What I would give for just one more Syllabus week. 

So here we sit, August 3rd.  Those of you heading back to elementary, junior high, or high school - go finish your summer reading and math packets!  For those of you heading back to college, have a cold one for me, and enjoy the hell out of Syllabus Week!  And for those of us stuck in our corporate jobs with our corporate peers and our corporate holiday calendars, cheers!  We have more money than any of those suckers, even if we don't have a summer.