Counting Down to June 1

My students this year were quite a splendid bunch and I'm going to miss them all. These last few weeks are turning out to be hard enough, though, that I'm also going to be full of relief on June 1. The building is too hot, the kids are antsy and keep staring out the windows, and despite all my efforts to keep them busy learning, we keep finding ourselves with too much time to fill. I'm always exhausted on Fridays and usually come home and crash, but today the crash was particularly intense. I'm still surfacing from a deep nap and can barely move my legs. That's what I get for taking Dance Dance Revolution to our Outstanding Attendance party.

I still can't get over the joy of being done with my own 25 years of schooling. I'm the kinda kid, still, that has a hard time relaxing and enjoying any type of formal education experience (except when I'm the teacher!). I always feel pressure to impress the professor, to be perfect, to master every concept, to write pristine papers, and to get straight A's. When I'm taking any class, I have a constant buzz of anxiety. My grad school GPA, by the way, was a 3.9. So was it worth it? Certainly. I can now afford to continue doing the work I love, for at least thirty more years.