dislocated

After being away from school (buildings) for 2 months, we're (teachers, no students) finally back this week.  It feels exactly like coming back at the end of the summer and getting ready for a new school year, but we're doing the exact opposite: closing up our classrooms for the summer, and doing all the end-of-year stuff that is mostly a waste of time and resources.  But the school has been doing these things forever, so why change now?

(Because now is the perfect time to change, since everything is already so up in the air!)

Anyway, I am mostly done with everything I need to do, and just need to have my contract meeting with the principal and turn in my keys for the summer.

Everything feels slightly surreal, especially today, when from 7:30-8:30 AM and 5-6 PM we had parents driving through to both drop stuff off (books, etc that they had that needed to be returned) and pick stuff up (student work, school pictures, etc).  I am mostly out of this loop since I had very little to return to students (5 students had medication up in the office), but in typical fashion, admin said, "This is how this will work," only it wasn't thought out.  Two teachers tackled it head-on and came up with a great plan, and everyone organized all the material to go back to the students by family.  It worked out really well today, but it's exhausting somehow, even though there's barely any physical aspect to the work.  The younger children do not like seeing teachers in masks!

I'm very thankful for the weather today.  It was so lovely that we had dinner outside, followed by crumbl cookies given to me by a student.  Wow, were they delicious.  (and this is reason #762 why I can't lose the weight I've gained.  I was reading back in the blog about something else and came across a post in which I lamented that I was up to 137.  I've basically gained 15 pounds in 8 years, but at two distinct points in the recent past I was back down to 140, which is basically statistical noise.  When I'm north of 150, that's not rounding error! grrr)  I have no idea what's going on but I'm eschewing austerity for this week since it's the last week of school.  I am making an effort to eat more salad and drink more water, though!

DS2 saw the Army recruiter today but failed his drug test due to smoking some pot with his sister when she was here last week.  The recruiter wasn't fussed about it, apparently it happens all the time since pot is quasi-legal here (DD has a medical marijuana card.)  He brought home some information but nothing concrete.  We expect he'll get more solid info when he passes the drug test and becomes eligible to enlist... and then it will be decision time for him.  This is manifestly not us "sending him into the military," this is a something he chose on his own to investigate and if he decides to go for it, it will be wholly his decision.