An occasion of some sorrow

Yesterday was my last class meeting of the academic year. This was a matter of some sorrow to me, and possibly more so to many of my students. Yes, I know some people may consider me rather naive. ;)

Nevertheless, the coming months will allow me time to catch up on a number of things:

• Writing my "un-holiday" letter. I have several years of events and issues to discuss.
• Building up the Autism Education Foundation, whose purpose is to make educational materials on autism, for a variety of disciplines, readily available on the Internet so that instructors at junior high, high school, and college levels will find it convenient to cover the topic. I will now have the chance to send out solicitations for contributions.
  
• Finally making some major updates to my ConsumerPsychologist web site.
• Finishing my book Orbiting the Autism Spectrum: Looking In, Looking Out.
• Catching up on my color research.
• Reading a large stack of books that have been piling up during the academic year.
  
• Preparing for the Fall semester.
• Making more blog entries.

Except for a week in mid July discussed below, please do not call this my "vacation!"

This summer, I also plan to reinstate the "tradition" I started in the summer of 2005 of doing some traveling right after the Autism Society conference in July. The conference can be quite emotionally draining, so I realized that the week after the conference probably would not be all that productive anyway. Last summer, with the move, I did not find time for the diversion.

This year, by the way, will be the first time in many years that will not make any presentations at the ASA conference. It got too busy this fall to submit anything. There is plenty to read on my web sites.