Yes, I Am Excited!

My summer break began at about 1:15 p.m. today.  Today was "close out the school year" day.  This means I had to go in and make sure all my end of the year paperwork was in order, turn in my keys, get my technology inventoried, and check out with my principal.

I was actually panicked by about 9:00 a.m.  You see, usually by this day all I have to do is straighten up some things in my room.  Maybe tape a couple boxes shut, and clean off the white boards.  Then, I wait for the principal to be ready to check people out.  But, this year, I still had all my cumulative file paperwork to do on 23 students that included printing reports on four tests for each student and printing two copies of each report card.  This isn't as easy as it sounds as our report cards are front to back.

To top things off, I was out toner in my printer, the internet for the school district was down and the copy machine (of which I was also in dire need) was acting up... AGAIN!  But then what can you expect from a machine that has to service about 40 staff members all by itself?  Oh, and my principal let it be known she had an afternoon meeting that would put her out of the building between about 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.

I do not like the thought of having to return to work the day after my last day to have to finish closing things out.  As a matter of fact, I pretty much refuse to do such a thing.  So, yes I was panicked that I would not be done before my principal left at 1:00.  But, somehow I managed to pull it all off and was able to get checked out before she left the building.  This meant I got to leave, too.   WOO HOO!!!!!

I really, really, really NEED this summer break.  The past two years have been two of the top 5 hardest I've had in my 20 years of teaching.  Next year will probably be another hard year, but I am determined to be refreshed and ready to go by my first day back.  So, I've turned on the vacation response on my work email and have come home to begin my 76 days of summer break.  Of course come August I'll probably go in at least a couple days to get my room ready, but that will be of my own choosing and in my own time and pace.

So, HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!!!!!