What is wrong with me?

I'm being genuine with this post. I'm not looking for any back-patting or anything of the sort.

Here's the deal: I am done grading essays. Finally. It took way too long, and that's my own fault. I should have just cranked them out last week, but that's not the point.

Now that I'm done with these essays -- on New Year's Eve -- I just want to stay home, read some blogs, tweet around on Twitter, and get after the book-reading I should have been doing all break. Going out and being "social" is at the bottom on my list.

It's not just tonight, though. That's how I've been all school year.

I've been warned a few times this year not to get burned out. What I'm realizing, though, is that I'm the opposite of burned out.

I have finally -- finally -- after years of being told I wasn't living up to my potential blah blah found exactly what I am passionate about. And now, that's all I want. I want to learn and talk and chat and Skype and argue and be wrong and learn.

And it's hermitizing me.

One of our best friends asked my wife after our last group get together if something was "going on" with me. "He's been so quiet lately," she confided. Becky just shrugged and explained that "he's got education on his brain a lot lately and he doesn't want to bore people with it. I think he'd rather just listen and think."

It's true. It was a reaffirmation that she knows me so well.

I'm left wondering, though. Is this healthy? I can admit that the "You'll get burned out!" folks (said in the vain of "You'll shoot your eye out!") might finally be getting to me.


Will I get burned out? And if I do, is that bad?

How do you manage the feeling of not being able to stop thinking about education and just relax?