I sat by the window as a deliciously cool breeze wafted through it at a sluggish pace, a lazy terrier with tongue lolling out from the heat and determined to use as little energy as possible in the taxing rays of the summer sun. The keys of the computer clicked on, halting and choppy, with a few short bursts of rapid fire and then a pause while my lively thoughts scrambled to put themselves all in order, like the chaos of a train station when all the passengers are suddenly told to line up against the wall. I was writing emails. About 20 minutes ago, I had stepped through my own front door and suddenly everything looked completely alien to me. Suddenly, there was no homework or after school activities or sports games or piano recitals. There was absolutely nothing that needed to be done. Suddenly there was all the time in the world, or at least there were two free weeks before camp begins. My brain struggled to take this in. I dropped my backpack, full of hollow remnants of long-forgotten locker supplies, slowly, with the air of a person who has just seen a ghost or magic and doesn't quite believe it, maybe because it is so alien to them that such an idea cannot be processed, like when somebody speaks a foreign language really fast, or perhaps because they don't want to believe the idea. They don't want to because, even though the idea of having all this free time is appealing, and the fact that I'm getting to rest from all the work I've been doing for so long has been long sought-after, that's not what's familiar, and people will always shy away from things that seem different to them, unless they make a conscious effort not to. So I was used to being busy and having all this work to do, and maybe this was why I was a little fazed, because this new relaxed feeling is just so different, and I automatically shy away from it, until I realize this is craziness, and I am being ridiculous. Which generally happens every day or so, so it was nothing new.