This is it. Day 70. I've been waiting for this day since I started. I've been counting up, counting down, planning for and anticipating. And now it is here. I don't even know where to start. I'm getting a little emotional trying to write this. How can I possibly begin to summarize all of the feelings I have today? I know that I'll be back in a week to truly meet all of my requirements, but today really feels like the end.
I guess I am a little glad, though, that today wasn't the end. It was Fitness Friday (consequently, that is why I am sitting here with blue and pink hair...more on that later) and so the end of the day was really rushed and kind of crazy, throwing backpacks around and hurrying everyone out the door. So I didn't really get to say goodbye to any of the kids or Jennie or Aryn...and I didn't have to because I'll be back next week. I am thankful for that now, looking back on it. I would have been really disappointed if my final memories of all of my children were of them sprinting out the classroom door with their backpacks half open. Next week I will be able to give them a proper goodbye, and so for that reason I am glad we'll be back. (Let me be more clear -- that is the only reason I am glad we'll be back.)
I don't know if I'll even blog next Thursday or Friday. I might, if something really extraordinary happens, but for all intents and purposes, this is it. I've reached the finish line in this race that I started without a game plan, took the long way around a couple times too many, and ended up right back where I started...but a million times happier and more proud of myself.
Fitness Friday was really fun. Us student teachers prepared a little dance called "Ice Cream and Cake," and we all dressed up like different flavors of ice cream. I found this glitter spray-in hair color at Walmart last night and bought it for us all to use, so we had multicolored hair to match our colorful clothes. I was cotton candy ice cream, and I dressed all in blue -- Christina even brought me a tutu that I wore for the dance. It was so fun, because usually we're all really reserved and professional, but today we got up in front of everybody and danced like fools in our crazy hair. I loved it. Everyone was so shocked at how "into it" we got. I don't think they were expecting us to go all out like we did. (The bathroom that we got ready in still smelled like hairspray an hour later...we used A LOT of it.) It was fun to just be silly for once and not care how I looked. Teachers need to do stuff like this, because the kids love it and it really gets them excited for whatever is going on. Before this semester I would never have dreamed that I would be doing a dance in front of 400 people with a blue and pink side ponytail and a tutu...and yet here we are.
I did not cry today. I think it was because I knew it wasn't truly the end. I can't speak for next Friday yet, but I think that's when the waterworks might start. Today Aryn signed my last weekly evaluation. It's weird -- I have all of my paperwork done. There are no more lessons to write or evaluate, no more reflections to do, no more forms to fill out or evaluations to get signed...it's all done. My binder is finished. My projects are done. I still can't really fathom what it is going to be like to not be an early childhood undergraduate student anymore. It's been my life for the last 4 years. Wow. 4 years. It sounds like such a long time, and yet it feels like yesterday I walked into my little "freshman experience" class with no idea what I was getting myself into. I don't know if I'm ready for it to be over. I never really, seriously thought about what it would be like to be finished. I've been saying how ready I am to be done, and now I'm approaching the end of my marathon and I'm actually surprised to see the finish line. It's so weird how things happen like that -- you're so, so, SO ready to be done with something, and then bam when it hits you, you're a weepy, sobby, scared little mess who just wants to have a little more time to figure it all out. Is that what I am right now? I don't know. I think I might just be rambling because I don't want to be done with this entry yet. I am not ready to say goodbye to my little blog that's carried me through this semester.
I don't know what I'm going to do with this blog now. I think I want to keep it going, in some way. It has been good for me; it's given me an outlet for my excitements and frustrations. It's let me talk things out and organize my thoughts. It has truly made me a better teacher this semester, and I don't think I'm ready to let it go. I think I'll keep it alive, somehow. I'll never truly be done learning, especially my first few years teaching. Maybe it won't be every day, but it will be here if I need it.
One final thing I realized today: in the carpool home yesterday a couple of the girls were talking about how they're worried that when it comes time for them to get a job, they're going to not enjoy teaching. They're worried that they've put all this time into it and that they're going to be bad at it or it's going to burn them out, or that they just won't like it as much as they thought they would. I was surprised because that is exactly how I felt at the beginning of this semester, and now it's completely changed. I didn't know that other people thought this way. And I'm kind of sad for them, because this semester did change my mind about wanting to be a teacher...but it made me want to do it more, not the opposite! I was ready to find a completely different career path when I started this semester (you know, Days 2, 3, 4...). I made that clear to Aryn. I told her I didn't think I wanted to teach anymore and I was a little scared and unsure about what I wanted to do with my life.
And then I changed. She changed me, and these kids changed me, and this school changed me. I want to do it now. I really, really do. I am still going to go for my PhD and probably end up teaching at a university somewhere. I know that I won't be in an elementary classroom forever. But I know that when I am teaching children, it won't just be to build up my credibility in the future, or to make money while I'm trying to decide where to apply for school, or any of those things I thought it was going to be just 4 short months ago. It is going to be because I want to, and because I am good at it. I am a good teacher. I'm not going to ask myself if I can learn to teach anymore -- I KNOW I can. I have, and I will continue to. I will be able to do this. I know I will because I have already done it. I am capable. I am not going to be scared and tear myself down anymore. I am not going to be so hard on myself. I am going to try and see my strengths -- the ones that others see but I (deliberately) look past because sometimes I'm more comfortable seeing my bad qualities instead of my great ones. But I can't do that anymore, because everyone who has supported me through this semester (including me, now) knows this to be true: I am smart, I am prepared, and I am passionate. I am no longer the scared, "passion-less" girl I was on January 14, 2013. I am a teacher. Really, truly, honestly.
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