From Bad to Good to Sad...

The Bad:

I made the mistake of staying up until 2am reading my new book. Around 4am Andy called and told me he was on his way home ina terrrrrible storm; I was so worried about him getting in a car accident that I stayed awake until he got home around 4:30. We finally fall asleep around 5 only to be waken up at 6 by the building's fire alarm. Yes, the building, not just the one in our apartment. That mother was loud, I seriously jumped out of bed assuming our apartment was up in flames. Andy refused to get out of bed, assuming the alarm was a result of the power outage...this made me furious. I seriously thought, fine stay in bed and get burned alive...that will feel nice, and left the building to see what was going on. It turns out Andy was right, the alarm was the result of the power being off for so many hours. So I go back inside, the alarm still going off of course, and try to fall back to sleep...but there is no possible way to tune out the blaring noise coming from the hallway. It took the Woodbury Fire Department 30 minutes to arrive and turn off the alarm! 30 F-ing minutes!! By this time is is 6:30, I'm supposed to get up at 7 so I can make it to work by 8:30 for the sixth grade 'donut party'. With the power still out and me only getting a total of about 3 hours sleep, there was no way I'd be able to handle to entire day with my sixth graders. I called in, told them I'd be there at 10 (the time I really had to be there) and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

The Good:

When I got to work I had a lovely bouquet of flowers on my desk and a pretty pink gift bag. Two of my students had bought me going away presents....how sweet huh?! This definitely brightened up my day! Throughout the course of the afternoon I signed a gazillion yearbooks, ate lunch with my students, and talked with them one last time. Our end of the year party was so nice, everyone really had a great time!

The Sad:

The last few minutes of school, many of my students came up and gave me hugs goodbye. I was so sad saying goodbye to all of them, I actually had to hold back tears at one point. When the bell rang, all of us teachers walked outside and waved goodbye to all of the students as they left. After the last bus had pulled out, it really hit me that the year is over. I'll will probably never see many of those kids again. I cared about every single one of them and I will really miss them! It's funny, when I was a student I figured the teachers were thrilled to see us leave on the last day of school, but today many were crying, and those who weren't crying were fighting tears. It just goes to show how much teachers really do care about their students.

I was really blessed this year to have such a great job. I really couldn't have asked for a better first year of teaching.