Closing up shop.

It's the end of the year at the AS world. That means there's a whole lot of sitting around doing nothing on my work schedule. The end of the year brings a whole lot of ridiculous with it, too. I will allow myself to share with you.

1. Change classrooms AGAIN. In August, I will begin my 5th year at the American School. I will begin it in the 6th classroom. That's right. 6 classrooms, 5 years. It's a good thing I'm ocd about throwing things away so I don't have that much to move. But, honestly, again? Another classroom? I'm going back down to 5th grade because they say they need my crack-the-whip, respect-my-authority, no-you-may-not-do-whatever-you're-asking-to-do, yes-you-do-have-to-do-what-I-say, discipline-is-my-best-friend attitude with the next generation of kids. Needless to say, I'm psyched for the groups to come.

2. Have a party. We celebrated 4th of July with a staff barbeque- hot dogs, burgers, baked beans, etc. Only a few people gave the beans a look that blatantly said "You put sugar on the beans." To which we kindly resonded with the look of "You put chocolate on your chicken (aka Mole)" The 6th grade team and a couple others spent the WHOLE day, 8-2, preparing, partying, and cleaning up a 1-hour lunch. Complete with Conga line and dance party. It's just what happens when teachers get a little freedom.


3. Say good-bye. Now, this doesn't really fall so much into the ridiculous category as it does into the I-can't-believe-it category. I'm not lying or exagerating when I say that I can count all of my friends here on approximately two hands. So, when people decide to go back to the USA or dedicate their time to their families, I'm jealous, I mean sad. My good friend Claritza is leaving with her husband and soon to be born little girl. We started at the school together, did our masters together, got married and pregnant within months of eachother. We've really grown-up together from late Friday nights with too much beer and dance parties in our living room to sharing ups and downs and asking eachother's advice. I will REALLY miss her!

4. File and unfile, and file again. The Secretary of Education sends report cards for Spanish teachers to fill out, in pen, with zero mistakes, at the end of every school year. This year those report cards are behind schedule. Which means that everything is now behind schedule. We file student grades in their individual files at the end of every year, too. Because we didn't have grades to give to parents, we had to unfile the previously filed grades, put them into the envelopes to send home, print out new report cards and file them again. Maybe I'm just nuts, but couldn't we have skipped a few steps here, printed the report cards again and just put those in the envelopes??

5. Here's my year in review:
Number of times called to the office: 6
Number of times called to the principal's office: 1 (a real improvement for me)
Number of times accused of starting a strike with the 6th grade teachers: 1
Number of weeks worked: 30
Number of weeks of maternity leave: 14
Number of hours at work per week: 30
Number of hours of actual work completed each week BEFORE maternity leave: 28
Number of hours of actual work completed each week AFTER maternity leave: 2

School's out for summer. One month from today, I'll have to be back. Better hurry up and start enjoying the days off!