Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Put a fork in me. I'm done!

Put a fork in me, I’m done!

I’ve reached my limit. I’ve had it. I have left the building.

(Can I think of any more clichés?)

I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t feel like doing this anymore! (I guess I can!)

It’s June and I have officially checked out! (Okay, really… that’s the end of them!)

Which would be fine if THERE WASN’T ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL LEFT!

And, to make matters worse, it is possibly the most stressful week of the entire academic year. Yes, that’s right – FINALS!



I know this is nothing new. I remember taking finals when I was in high school, listening to the those lucky youngsters who were all but finished school (as if watching movies and cleaning desks was on the academic calendar) running outside my bedroom window, playing and getting ice cream from the ice cream man, while I sat sweating in my room, trying desperately to memorize a semester’s worth of work in one night!

Oh, there was a brief respite in my academic career. I graduated high school and college, worked a “real job,” got married and had my babies. June was looking good again. The days were longer and warmer, and the promise of summer made the month one of my favorites.

And then those babies grew up. And started school. And started taking tests and exams. And I suddenly feel like that high school student again, sweating through my days and nights re-learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and trying to remember the dates of the Mexican-American War. (It was 1846-1848, in case you can’t remember either.)

Yes, I know. I am not the one in school, taking those finals. But, if you’ve ever lived in the home of two children (girls, no less) studying for final exams, you know the whole family suffers.

Tears, tantrums and tirades fill the house, and that’s just from me.

It’s exhausting, and I’m not even taking the tests.

Do we really need to test these kids on things they learned in January, when they can’t even remember to make their beds in the morning?

One more week – that has become my mantra every morning when I wake up the girls.

One more week – and then homework and test and schedules will be a thing of the past (at least for a few months!)

One more week – I can make it, can’t I?