Graduation....

*This post is more of a journal entry for me, hope not to bore you*

HOLY MOLY.

DO I REALLY GRADUATE IN ONLY 4 WEEKS?!!

"Certainly it'll never come," I've been telling people. "Oh yeah I have a while left in school" which turned into "I have 3 more semesters" then into "I only have student teaching left" and now "ONLY 4 MORE WEEKS" which consist of really ONLY 13 more teaching days, 1 night of parent teacher conferences (which are student-lead, so peace of cake for me), and 1 last PRAXIS exam.

It's kind of a bitter sweet feeling.

Talking over our Easter feast today (we had it early due to Curt's CRAZY schedule)Curt asked me if I'm ready to go back yet.

I've been off this week for Spring Break and I honestly told him 

YES!!!

I miss my kiddos, they make me laugh every day.

Like one day this cute little blonde haired boy came up to me with stick-like biceps and said to me 'check out my muscles!'

I couldn't help but walk away and chuckle to myself. He was dead serious and so proud of those muscles.

Or another day when a student who happened to be a boy was showing a new boy around and like nothing was wrong walked straight into the girls locker room, promptly to be taken out by the girls pe teacher saying, 

"ARE YOU NUTS?" 

It was so funny to watch the whole thing unfold. 

Or the moments when you see confidence soar simply because I asked about her earrings every day.

Or the comment from a student saying "Mrs. Dana, you're a really great teacher!" 

Whether they were sucking up or not, I could care less, it makes me feel like what I'm doing is worth it!

After going to faculty meetings and department meetings and diving head first into the politics of teaching, I really at one point thought, no way! This is not worth it! I wont get paid enough to please the head honchos and district policies.

But then those moments come back when the kids brighten my day or I somehow brighten theirs! 

So after our feast when we had 20 minutes to have Curt snap some graduation pictures of me, I thought to myself where has all the time gone? 

I remember the day I knew I wanted to become a PE teacher. I was walking past the elementary school on campus and saw the kids playing outside in PE. Something clicked. That familiar feeling when you know you're making the right decision rushed over my body. 

I feel so blessed to be ending my college career with these kids. 

My whole time here at Utah State has been a dream.

It's been wonderful, difficult, exhausting, suspenseful, rewarding, and seriously where I've supposed to have been these past 5 years.

It's funny how the Lord knows exactly where we're supposed to be.

So to the next 4 weeks I hope I can make a difference! I'm certain I'll have many more stories, many more memories, and many more wishes that time would stand still.

But for now, I'm grateful for the opportunities I have had, for the great support from family & the sweetest husband! And to be honest, I'm grateful that Curt still has a few more semesters left here.

I'm sure once I've graduated & we've gone home for the summer I'll be perfectly content, so thrilled that school is over.

But I want to remember how much I enjoyed my time at school, if only to share with my kids the passion I have for it.

It's true, I'm a nerd but funny enough I'm not loving it so much to get a masters, at least for the time being!.