Sayonara, Spring Semester

coyot via Pixabay

Yesterday morning, I taught my last positive psychology class of the semester. While the end of the semester is always bittersweet, closing out this class definitely inspired some pangs of loss. An upper level elective where everyone chose the class because they wanted to be there, it had a different feel than the requirement-fulfilling classes I'm used to teaching. In addition, this was the first class I created from scratch, and it was a small class that included activities and assessments as part of the curriculum, so there was a personal element built in, allowing us to make connections, much as I had when I worked as a counselor.

On positive psych class days, I never failed to leave campus smiling. But yesterday, I was a little sad.

What a difference a day makes.

Today, I taught my last two classes for the semester. I enjoy these students, too, and will especially miss the discussions we had in my afternoon class, which just clicked. But today it was 90 degrees and I taught two classes back-to-back in a third floor classroom with no evidence of air conditioning. We got a cross breeze going, but it didn't really cool the room down and by the time I was finished, I was wilting and so were my students.

In a way, I'm grateful because now, I'm ready.  I've been barreling toward the end of the semester so quickly and with my blinders so securely in place that I came close to losing track of the reality of this day. It was only this morning that I realized that, although I have plenty to do tomorrow -- papers to grade, writing projects to tackle, a house to put back into shape -- I don't have to set an alarm.

Unlike most summers, I have only a few weeks off before I teach again. Since I've agreed to teach a summer session course, my summer break is shorter by a month. I'll be off while my daughter is home and I'll have time for a vacation, and so this plan, which allows me to do all the things I love, is a good one.

Tonight, I have papers to grade and projects to work on, mail to sort through, things to put away. But I am taking a break. Tomorrow, I will dig in again, moving into finals' week at a more leisurely pace, refreshed by a night off and a break in the routine, inspired by a semester whose end is bittersweet.