Empty

Tomorrow is the last day of school. My entire day today has been filled with emptying my classroom of personal stuff and supplies and with signing my students out. Almost all of them are graduating seniors, so it's been a very bittersweet process. To tell the truth, I've had to fight back tears more than once, and I'm sure that I'll be an enormous wreck at Saturday's graduation ceremony.

Now that just about everything is packed away and most of the kids have left I'm taking some time to look around the room and marvel at how familiar it feels. I can clearly remember walking in here for the first time back in October and being scared out of my mind. I remember bringing those first few boxes of books and posters into the building, remember writing my first lesson out on the board the Saturday before I formally took over the class, and remember hoping like hell that I'd survive that first week. I guess I did, because it's suddenly May and I'm saying goodbye to everyone.

Times like this I know that I've made the right decision to come back here next year.