Summer

It's here, summer is here! Not just calendar summer, but school's-out-for-summer summer! 

This year was a doozy. It was also awesome in many ways, and I absolutely loved my kids (even the ones who had anger issues and personal space issues, I end up loving them extra). I will be glad to see the every-other-period schedule go the way of the dodo. Rushing from classroom to classroom, debriefing and prebriefing with co-teachers, managing different grades, walking around with my fruit-yogurt-granola parfait for hours because there's no time to eat... I will be glad to see that go. Funny thing is, I'm teaching almost the exact same thing next year -- just different schedule and different caseload. Still 7th special class, 8th co-taught social studies, and the only difference is instead of Resource Room with complex kids, I have a newly created Study Skills class with supposedly less complex kids (although it would appear that is a bit of an illusion). We shall see what that looks like...

I ended the year with health issues...made it THE ENTIRE TIME without a respiratory infection, and then come June I got hit hard with an asthma exacerbation. I had a little cold before, like a sinus-y snotty upper respiratory thing, but then it went into my lungs and pollen added an extra kick and I ended up out of school for 4 days and on multiple rounds of steroids and nebulizing. I missed the 8th grade beach party, I missed the Color Run (aw, shucks, darn it...haha). I missed precious last days with my kids, although I came back with 5 left. It was very scary -- I went to urgent care twice and the second time they asked me if I've ever been intubated for my asthma before (um...NO! WTF?) and was given a Medrol 80 mg shot in my arm. They said it would be like a flu shot...except it BURNED all the way down my arm. So just know, that's apparently normal if you ever have to get one. 

I made my memories posters for my 7th grade special class friends, all TWO of them that we had left by the end of the year. They hated each other, so I made sure not to put pictures of the other on their posters. They were completely customized! Lots of goofy things we drew on the board, inside jokes such as George Washington's horse, Nelson, and favorite memes. Then for my resource room/caseload, I made cards with pictures and images that meant something to them and wrote them a little message of love, encouragement, and major I'll Miss Yous. I love doing this, because I have the projects in my Canva projects forever, and the kids just light up. 

I love that I live in this cyclical world where we have 10 months of intense time together and then it ends, just to begin all new in the fall. (Or in next year's case, August, since the school year keeps going longer and longer and starting earlier and earlier.)

And summer...summer is for rejuvenating. For recuperating. For some deep rest needed after the marathon that is the school year. This year I really felt that my brain could reach a capacity where I had nothing left at the end of the day and needed to just veg. I found that my reading slowed way down during the week and then picked up on the weekends. This year was difficult for work-life balance, but I survived it. 

And now, this is nearing the end of Week One of summer vacation (out of nine). The word for this week is RECONSTITUTE. I have no goals. I am just letting myself be a puddle (on the floor, on the couch, on the deck, on the futon, in bed). I nap when I want to. I'm reading. I'm moving my body. I am absolutely not trying to accomplish ANYTHING. 

This is a mistake I've made before, where I make goals for the summer and track accomplishments and then end up...not quite as rested, not quite as separated from work. I've seen a lot of reels lately with teachers talking about the need to totally let go for a week, and then decide not what you want to do first, but what you want LESS of, and what you want MORE of. To balance it out. I have had the urge a few times this week to just check something real quick about school...and I SQUASHED IT. No. I am not doing anything this week. I like to keep July as work-free as possible and then spend August prepping, but I think this year after this week I might do a few things in July because August is just so short. And that way I won't be dreading August as much because I'm sprinkling things about instead of making August just "one long Sunday night" like the memes I've seen that I love (and hate). 

So, happy summer! I can feel my brain coming back to life.