it's over.

so freakin' over.

yesterday i walked out of tilden middle school with a bag over my shoulder and a box in my arm. i hugged my student who lives across the street, stopped by another kids' house to drop off some books, and then made my last drive home.

the last two years have been bitter and sweet. this year has mostly been sweet. i miss my kids already. i told them on tuesday june 5 that i was moving to denver for a new job in which i would be trying to find more teachers for kids like them. since that day, they have (mostly) been absolutely precious, planning a surprise party for me and continuing to ask me questions like, "us or them? ms. matthews what are you choosing? us or them?"

one girl had a particularly traumatic week in which she fell asleep in our classroom and had a nightmare about our last day and about me leaving (i woke her up when she started to flail her arms, moan, and cry). two days later she walked into the classroom, stood frozen for about a minute, and then passed out.

i exchanged the following chat with a student (yes, i taught them how to use gmail so they'd feel like we would be able to stay in touch):

kiera: i know right anyway i will miss you a lot this summer
me: i will miss you too
all of you
you'll have a fun summer though
you'll probably forget all about me by the time you get back to school in september :)
kiera: i will never forget you ms.matthews you,ll always be in my heart

so it's been an emotional last few weeks. we took tons of video footage, which you can expect to see in the near future. i'll post it on my .mac homepage. for now, visit http://homepage.mac.com/sarahcm/keithvideo (password is sarah) to see keith, my superstar from last year that got into ... oh my gosh i never posted anything about this!!!! okay well that is on its way. basically he got into the performing arts high school, which is totally awesome, especially given his history.

you can also visit http://homepage.mac.com/sarahcm/iMovieTheater9.html to see an awesome video from the last day of school with teachers. it pretty much sums up a lot.

now the primary objective is to get all my stuff packed up and ready to move to denver. i'll be home this weekend for my bday, so i have today, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday to sort through everything i own, pack it, and put it in a uhaul to drive to denver. steve and i will leave ky on monday july 2 to make the drive ... and then ... i'll live in denver. wow. see you there :)