This was my first year in High School, and the end of the school year is nothing like the last 13 in Jr. High. Granted there have been no worries about student behavior, most of them didn't even show up, and the ones that did were there to finish up their work so they could pass their classes, not to mess around. On the other hand, the kids do want to pass their classes, and graduate with their peers, so you really have to be willing and able to help, can't just put it off 'till next year. Then there's the committees - Awards Banquet Committee, Graduation Committee and Senior Breakout Committee. I was in charge of the stage and the program for graduation. Stage was easy - program was another story. It has to be perfect. All 81 students' names have to be perfect. All the administration and teacher names, and degrees, have to be perfect. All the Board Member names have to be perfect. One typo and BOOM, somebody's gonna be on your butt for screwing up. So I went over all the names, letter by letter, with one counselor, fixed all the typos, then went over them letter by letter with the principal, fixed all the typos, then with the other counselor. All in all I think there were 6 or 7 times people went through it, 6 or 7 different revisions. But it ended up as perfect as humanly possible. The upshot of this whole rambling is that this is the first time in 14 years of teaching that I didn't have the time to clean up my classroom, the first time I'm going to still have to go back next week and get my check-out card signed.
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Yesterday was a great day, despite being long as hell. Started out at the usual 6 am, I was busy doing grades from 7 to around 9. Then I had to go pick up the Graduation Programs and the stage we rented for the ceremony, and set it up on the football field. Meanwhile, the principal fried her computer and I had to try to get it going again, which I couldn't do, so I had to set up another computer, with her e-mail on it, for her. The last day of school is not the day to be without a computer. Then I got to go home and shower, rest for a whopping 30 minutes and head back to school for Graduation. Let's see, sitting out on the football field, in the 6:00 sun and a black graduation robe was not the coolest thing to do. At least we had the sun to our backs, the speakers were looking striaght into the sun. But, the fact that it went off without a hitch and that I got a bunch of congratulations for the program, made the last week of hell all worthwhile. I was even mentioned by name in one of the student speeches, and in a nice way. With only 81 graduates (89% of our seniors graduated), the whole ceremony took a little less than 2 hours. We got it all cleaned up within an hour, giving me about another hour between that and the Senior Breakout Party (translation : give the seniors someplace to go other than a kegger). I knew that if I cam home, I'd lay down on the couch and not wake up until August, so instead a few of us went out to Village Inn and drank caffeine. 10:00 we're at the party (ok, we were a little late, it was 10:15), we played black-light volleyball and dodge ball, watched the first Pirates movie, got our caricatures drawn (which I was going to show you except my stupid scanner is "not recognized") and ate a lot of food. Somewhere around 1 am we were getting so tired you would have thought the teachers were drunk. Climed into bed around 2:30 am and, despite being thoroughly exausted, wake up promptly at 8:45. So, today has been one of those days, lay on the couch and watch CSI CD's........
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