And if I recover.

I can't believe I made it through the school year.  Right now it feels surreal.  The realization that I have no marking, no planning, no quizzes/tests/labs/assignments/exams to write, no meetings to dread, no extracurricular activities to plan, and did I mention no marking, is mind-blowing.  I can't believe I made it to here.

This week has been fun.  At work, I got a lot of cleaning/organizing done.  Teachers are packrats, because we're all afraid we are going to throw out a very important piece of paper that we'll need in the future (fuck, my mother, who has been long retired, still has boxes of papers from her teaching career in our basement).  This year I decided to get rid of all of the binders in my filing cabinet that I haven't touched in a couple of years (essentially all my stuff from 2004-2011).  It's kind of hard to throw away a nicely organized binder that I know I worked very hard on, but the curriculum is out of date, and I've already adapted what I could into the new curriculum.  It was time to purge, and emptying all those binders left me with so much space to store the things I actually wanted to keep.  My workspace will be far less cluttered next year.

On top of that, the evenings of last week were full of fun.  I went to a super exciting Jays game for my friend Mathew's birthday.  They blew a 6-run lead, but then were able to pull off a walk-off win in the ninth.  I want the Jays to make the playoffs SO BADLY this year.  It would be awesome.

Wednesday was a pool party, then Thursday night was graduation.  It was crazy to think that it was my tenth graduation ceremony that I've attended for this school.  Graduations are heart-warming, and such a blur.  It's always hard to come to terms with the fact there are kids that I'm used to seeing on a daily basis who I will never see again.  I tend to keep in touch with the ones that I am very close to (usually through extracurricular activities), but graduations make me think of a quote I once heard that went along the lines of teaching is a profession where you don't get to witness the results of your work.  (That's the gist of the quote; I don't know exactly know where it comes from.)  It's very true; I don't really know what happens to the vast majority of my students, but I do have faith that I was able to make a positive difference in their lives, to the best of my ability.

Today was our year-end staff party (or forced socialization, as I think of it).  It was fun, and afterwards some of my friends and I went to a second location for more drinks, which ended up turning into some light shopping.  I think our days of crazy year-end pub crawls are over, but that's okay.  I was happy to find a cute new top at Anthropolgie, and the willingness of a friend with a car to take me to Target to stock up on kitty-cat supplies.

This week has been one of lots of indulgences.  I look forward to using the start of summer (tomorrow) to reset and recover.  I need to lay off alcohol.  I love exploring new beer, and revisiting old favourites, but I have to lay off of it.  I want to get my bike out, go for some runs, go to the gym on hot days, clean and organize my place, read, and relax.  I'm trying to keep my socializing to a minimum for a little bit.  I need some me time.  On Sunday, I'm going to take myself to a play, and I've considered inviting a friend, but then I decided that after the past month of constant partying, I need some me time. 

I've been listening to a lot of CHVRCHES lately.  (I loved them live at Field Trip.)  This song is where I'm at right now.