Almost there...

Two more days of school! I'm almost there! And this week has been a breeze - all I do is hand the students their final exams and then listen to their final speeches. My juniors are giving a speech on whether or not they think the American Dream is alive or dead and reference one of the texts from the semester. There have been some very interesting and meaningful speeches. Pretty cool.

I've been thinking about the "last days of school" tonight and remembering a few memorable ones of my own. I'll never forget the end of 6th grade. I got the chicken pox two weeks before school was out. It was the culmination of my elementary school experience and I missed the bowling party, the ice cream party, the swimming party, and the pizza party. I did (just barely) make it to the 6th grade dance, for which my mom had made a smashing cute dress, and where we basically all stood around and stared at each other to music.

My 9th grade end of the year was a good one. The last two days of school were completely worthless. Over half of the school didn't even show up. Being a good freshman, I came to school, but my friends and I just wandered from class to class, making sure our teachers knew we were there. We somehow ended up in our Honors Biology room and sat and chatted with Mr. Watson. Poor man - we had given him a first year of teaching to remember - and at the end of the year he still liked us! In the course of our conversation, somehow we convinced him to let us tap dance on top of the lab tables. They make great sounds! And the bio room had pretty good acoustics!

Who can forget senior year? The last days of school are such a mix of happy/sad that it overwhelms you every 3 minutes. I really just remember emotion more than specific memories, but it's the kind of strong emotion that comes back in tsunami-sized waves in those quiet moments when you think about it hard enough.

OK, enough reminiscing. I've got to get ready to send my students off this year, get my daughter finished with 7th grade, attend my son's 5th grade graduation, and then head out to my own "I Survived Student Teaching" PARTY!