My last day at work was a bit...odd. First of all, I was super-stressed about leaving...not because I've been enjoying my job for the last little while, but because I wanted everything to be smooth and wonderful for my successor and I was driving myself crazy about leaving enough notes and handouts and stuff to get her through the rest of the semester. Grace was encouraging this; being herself a woman who takes on much and tries to hold it all together as well as being (God love her) a woman who vibrates at a high frequency. As a first-year department head, she can get a bit, well, anxious about her department, and I represented a big fucking disruption to the orderly progression of the days.

Added on top of this was report card season, i.e. the teacher's equivalent of crunch time. I had, stupidly, scheduled tests into my last week that needed to be marked & included on the report card. Add to this the almost-daily collection of assignments from my low-level students, and you had a big f-ing pile of marking to be processed before I could even begin to enter marks and write lame comments. Fortunately, I've been beavering away at the pile for two weeks, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. (Yet once again the Boy marked an entire class set of work, so I wasn't that together.) Yesterday night I hit a wall & started sobbing. The Boy put me to bed, and I spent all of today marking in class. It was done - but not in time for me to get any marks in. I suppose I'll have to come in on Monday to drop off my room key and do my report cards. Meh.

(The really crummy fact is that all of my attempts at mark accuracy seem to be wasted. Grace literally told me to bump up marks of 6 students to passing for no reason other than their attitude is good. We're talking about marks that are as low as 33% - and they get special rules because they're not complete fuck-ups. It's so unfair to the kids who actually did something that it makes my teeth hurt. O brave new world that will soon have such adults in it. Get used to the idea that they'll expect special consideration on parking tickets and tax deadlines.)

The third factor in the stress triumvirate was, ironically, my university-level students. There's one in particular who never hesitates to tell me if his feelings are hurt. The problem is that he's easily offended, he's aggressive, and he talks to me like we're equals. When you're in the middle of class, you don't want to hear students repeatedly ask you 'why are you being so mean?' - it's rude and out of line. In actual fact, I am very rarely mean - but this isn't kindergarten, and I'm not always made out of sweetness and light. Half the class refused to settle down today because they seemed to think that the fact of my last day gave them a free pass to fuck around. I quelled this bullshit as quickly as I could; I don't mind celebration but I refuse to be taken advantage of by a bunch of smart-assed sixteen-year-olds who care far less about me than they do about drinking pop and talking to their friends during school hours. Fuck that shit.

(I actually sent one of those kids to the office yesterday. I figured that it was my last chance to clip the legs out from a bully. That's my idea of a celebration. But I have to say that they were, withal, a nice class (once the jerks were settled like so much hash.) They sent around a card for me and one student dropped off a crystal bowl to my desk in the department.)

My general-level kids were great. I now find it ironic that I was stressed about them - they are, in many ways, more honest, more forthright, kinder and sweeter than my academic classes. And when they're not, they don't confuse their own problems with my attitude. Both classes worked like little angels all the way through the last assignment I gave them this year. There was no card, but there was no attitude either. I think that I enjoy that more.

Staff were a bit weird to me. Some asked the same questions ("are you excited?") and others ignored me like any other day. Theresa stopped short in the middle of the day when she realized that it was my very last day - but she & I were too stressed about report cards to do anything celebratory.

"It'll hit you on Wednesday," I said.

"No, I'll notice on Monday," she returned.

"Yeah, but no one ever notices anything of significance on Monday. Everybody has their head down and tries to get through the day. You may notice on Monday, but you won't care until Wednesday."

Come right down to it, I'm having such a hard time decompressing that I may not care until Wednesday.

Tonight I went to my first commencement as staff, and boy did it suck. Now that may have had something to do with the fact that my day was exquisitely stressful, and that I'd just hauled 3 armloads of stuff to my car by myself, thus killing my back for the evening. Or it may have had something to do with the fact that I haven't been sleeping very well. Or it may have just sucked. Commencements often do.

C. Thomas Flood was there, but I breezed in so late that I was easily able to avoid him. Grace tells me that she got a call from him last week about my job. I knew he'd never take retirement quietly! 4 months into it, and he's sniffing after my maternity leave. I really thought this would happen, but I suppose that if I wanted you to believe me, I should've written it in a sealed envelope last spring. I take petty pleasure out of the fact that he can't use the Sprout's arrival to sail back into the Hogsboro High English department. Heh. Any revenge is good revenge.

Halfway through the ceremony my aching back got too much for me and I ducked out. It's grand being this pregnant - no one asks you any tiresome questions. On my way out the door, one of the organizing moms spoke to me briefly - we'd spoken many times last year, but hadn't seem one another since the spring. She didn't know that I was pregnant, and she impulsively reached out to touch my short, soft hair when I told her. I left that place happy, finally connected to my fellow staff in a way that I wanted.

Missing half of that ceremony didn't hurt my mood either.

Booty Call: Day 245 - Length: 33 cm crown to rump (about 45 cm or 17 1/2 inches head to toe). Weight: 2700 gms or 6 lbs. Earliest date of full-term birth: get ready!