March is always the longest month of the year for me. Since my life revolves around a school schedule, this is the time when I can see the end of the year but it’s still fairly far away, the start of the year seems eons ago, and the realization that the ambitions I held to do this, this and that are not going to come to pass before the 2010/2011 school year turns its last page.

But if I step on the gas, I know I can make sure I at least do this… or that.

Or something. So March is when I MAKE A PROJECT.

Look, March is a 5 week month. At least there are 5 Tuesdays, 5 Wednesdays, and 5 Thursdays in this month and ostensibly, those should be the most productive work days of my week. Point is, the time is there. Additionally, I always feel it’s great to ensure that I have something tangible in my hand that I have really done after long slogs of time if for no other reason than the sense of actual accomplishment. March is a month where minutes can all-too-easily slip into hours, hours into days and days into an entire month. Doubt me? Just where-oh-where did February go?

It’s that sense which drives me to advocate for making a project in the month of March. It can be a personal project for my life outside of work lines (like exercise, build a tree swing, read a really thick by James Joyce) or it can be a work thing (like bringing Project-Based Learning into the classroom, locking down an outline for my next book or following up with that long lost uncle in Ghana who has all this gold bullion waiting for me once I give him my social security number).

But have something to show by April Fool’s Day because on 4-1-2011, the first third of this year will be over… and the question of what will I have to show for my time will be on my mind.

New Year’s has never really meant that much to me… because, I suspect, New Year’s for me always hits in September.

This January stuff is nice for a few days off and a change of weather (btw, in Los Angeles, the temp dropped to a frigid 62 this week inspiring all of us in Southern California to declare WTF?), but my life is synced to an academic calendar more than it is to anything else. I guess that’s why when the ball drops in Times Square, I am not one of those people with poppers and funny hats ready to dance in the streets of New York.

The rest of the world may be thinking WELCOME 2010 but for me, I am usually more concerned with finishing what is already in motion. I need to get my students back into the saddle and up to speed as quickly as I can. And then I need to make hay because January is a good month for teaching.

February, of course is gonna blaze by — especially since there are holidays that will take away time from an already short month — and before I know it March, the biggest, most beefy teaching month of the year, will be here.

March, btw, is where we make our money. Have a good March and you will have made some real inroads. Have a poor March and you will look back on the year with “Oh, what coulda been.”

See, this is how I think. The year ends in June, begins in September and only muggles really dance in the streets in January — cause they do not understand the true nature of the universe’s actual schedule.