Before anything, let me ask you this favor: the mother of the kids I babysit is having pretty extensive surgery today (to remove the cancerous part of her colon). She's young, the kids are really young (9,3,1) and the whole situation is scary and unfortunate. Please send your prayers and positive thoughts out into the universe on their behalf.

The school year is drawing to a close. The seniors transitioned off campus and into their internships on Friday, the remaining students are pushing every envelope and testing every boundary and the teachers are starting to look a little dazed. Must be nearing the end. (Sixteen days for the middle school, by the way.) With the seniors gone, I now teach from 8a-10:10am and from 2:55pm-3:45pm. Those five hours in the middle can get a little long, but mainly I've filled it with end-of-year tasks and lots of Civics prep. Plus I get tapped to sub ALL OF THE TIME, which is to be expected, but also really annoying.

The end of the year means lots of activities and things of that nature. Tonight is a cookout fundraiser, tomorrow is the spring football scrimmage, Thursday is the school musical. My first year I would have diligently attended every minute of every event, but this time around I'm probably going to skip the cookout, swing by the scrimmage and still go to the musical. There are moments when I think that this change in attendance is a bad sign, but the reality is that as much as I like my job and adore the students, I need to have my own life. Even if skipping the cookout just means I can go to the gym before going to Brian's and leaving the scrimmage early is simply so I can get some laundry done. My own life doesn't have to be exciting - just my own.

Saturday some friends of mine had a fundraiser bbq (they are starting a new nonprofit) and I was talking to another teacher from school. He has been at the school for seven, maybe eight, years and he is really good about setting limits. I think I'm getting there, but I know I have a long way to go. I want my students to be able to trust me and to have strong relationships with them, but I also want them to respect my space and my time. He and I both agreed that making that transition to a teacher with limits is hard, but necessary to avoid burnout. I feel like it's part of the process of growing up - my job is no longer my whole life (it always has been) - and that is a very strange existence for me.

In other news, my trip to LA is set. I am meeting Maggie at LAX on July 3rd for three days of vacation (yay!) and then I'm headed to San Diego on the morning of the 7th for my cousin Allison's wedding. (She and her fiance are all of 23 years old; it's a little gross.) My seminar starts on the evening of the 7th and runs through the morning of the 28th. It sounds like a lot of work, but also a lot of time to enjoy my surroundings. I mean, if I have to read lengthy constitutional foundation texts, I might as well do so on a hill overlooking LA, right? Plus, y'all know what a geek I am; I'm really excited about the readings and assignments. Brian is coming to visit the second weekend. This way, my month away is broken in half. He lived in LA for some time and has some really good friends out there so he'll visit with them for a few days while I'm in class and then we'll spend the weekend together. Good times all around, I think.