Sixth Grade Comes to an End

Only one more 5:45 am wake up call left of student teaching! 

I am so excited to no longer have to return to our overpopulated, windowless prison cell classroom with smelly hormonal sixth graders. Yep, over the oppressively stuffy classroom.  
I am also pretty stoked to be able to stay up later than 11pm and not want to die midday.  
Oh, I'm also tired of not getting paid.  

However. 

I am going to miss the compliments from my girls first thing every morning.
I am going to miss the immature jokes that made me laugh at, if not always with, my students. 
I am going to miss the "aha" moments when a hovering light bulb almost literally turns on over their heads. 
I am going to miss the endless loose-leaf doodles "To Ms. Yelensis." 
The smiles when we start something new.
The notes on the floor.
The music performances.

I wish I could stay a little longer to watch them "Graduate" to the middle school.
I wish I could stay to join them on their sixth grade picnic.
I wish I could be there when they make the realization that the recess drama that is so momentous now is actually petty nonsense in high school.  
I wish I could see all my sixth graders grow and mature even more than they have in the past ten months.

But I guess that's my first lesson in teaching. I will get a new group of students every September without fail, and without fail I will probably fall in love with them.  And without fail they will move on in the spring.  I will have to learn to love and let go. Although I don't think I will ever forget these 22 sixth graders - the sixth graders that made up my very first class.

Here's to the Nights

My tongue is still slightly berry-stained from the cheap bottles of red wine I shared with my roommates last night. I overslept by twenty-seven minutes and I'm still feeling drowsy.  My eyelids are just slightly pink, yet obviously puffy, and my voice is noticeably more raspy than usual.

So here I am, feigning composure in my wrinkled white J.Crew cardigan, pretending to do work, but really reminiscing on last night's "final supper" of sorts.

My roommates and I decided to cook a homemade meal of entirely too much Italian food and consume entirely too much wine as a final girls' night prior to our moving out.

It was a "happy-sad" feeling: laughing about all of our antics since freshman year, and crying over the fact it will be much harder to continue those antics after we are no longer sharing an apartment.

Last night was just the first night of a string of events leading up to our graduation.  I'm preparing myself for the next week and a half of "happy-sad" moments.

Here's to all the nights we have had together, and all the nights the next chapter will bring.

Five Years Ago Today

my best friend called me his girlfriend for the first time.  

In 2006 I had the biggest crush on C, like ever. Look how little we were at my Sweet 16! 

 Less than a year later I was at his Junior Prom and was officially his "girlfriend." 

 Senior year we spent as much time together as two high schoolers going to different schools possibly could. 

I was heart broken when he had to leave me to go to college in August of 2008. 

Still in love in 2009.

 ... And 2010. 

... And 2011.

 And I never thought I could love anyone more than I did last year or the year before that, but here I am five years later, with my high school sweetheart and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Sixth Grade Conversations...Overheard

Diva: I played softball yesterday. It was so fun!

Ms. Thang: Huh? You play ball? You on a team? 

Diva: Yeah but they named us the worst name, like, I can't believe they would name us after a team that is like so, so bad... We the Orioles."

Ms. Thang: That is a stupid name! Who would name a softball team after a COOKIE?!

(Lord help us all.)

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Mr. Know-it-All: negative three times negative four (-3 x -4) has to be positive because I remember Ms. Y saying two negatives equal a positive.
Ms. Smarty Pants: Don't you know anything?? Two wrongs don't make a right.  
(I'm worried about how I am going to explain that one tomorrow...)
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Shy Boy: Will you sign my year book?
Diva: OK, my picture is ugly but it's ok I'm SEXY AND I KNOW IT. 
(...gotta love Pop Culture.)
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*FYI: All of these dialogues were overheard outside of instructional class time.  They actually have these conversations upon their free will. I can't make this stuff up.  


Happy Thursday! Exactly one week left before I leave my sixth graders and I cross the threshold from student intern to (unemployed) certified teacher on the hunt for a job! Yikes.