So giddy I can hardly see straight

I woke up briefly at 1 a.m. this morning, and as I glanced over at the clock a thought went through my mind that excited me so much I almost didn't go back to sleep.

School is out THIS WEEK!

For me, at least. My oldest and youngest finished this past week which will ease up the schedule a bit. Middle child (in a different school) will finish June 4.

But right now it's this Friday ~ the day I empty out my classroom ~ that excites me the most.

As I have said before, I have loved every moment of this year. The experience of teaching in a small private Christian school has been RADICALLY different from teaching in a 7A public high school. I have enjoyed each one of my 27 students ... but I'm ready for summer.

More than anything, I'm ready to prepare for next year. I will be moving up with my sophomores and teaching American lit this coming year. Call me a nerd, but my brain is so abuzz with ideas that I can hardly see straight. We'll be reading "The Scarlet Letter," and I already have a preliminary pattern sketched out for my Hester Prynne dress with a big fancy A that I will wear to introduce the unit. Early American literature is one of my passions because of the glimpse that it gives us into the origins of our great nation.

Bye bye Silas Marner and Julius Caesar. Perhaps I will see you again in a few years, but Hester Prynne and Tom Sawyer are calling me now ...