Exhaling (again)

I don't have too much in the way of a long post to offer today. This past week was final exam week at the college where I teach, so I spent most of my waking hours fielding desperate stories from students, walking paperwork to and from administrative offices, crunching lots and lots of numbers, eating too many crackers, and listening to lots of music** while I graded. But it's done. As always, this time of the year, all the frustration I might have felt over a particular class, or for a particular student here and there melts away as I watch them hunched over their exam papers, scribbling furiously away, or biting the ends of their pens. I want the best for them all, I really do. I like this time of the semester, when the exams are done, and I can sit in my office grading and calculating, and the students stop by. Once they find out their grades relief makes them open up; they'll share their holiday plans, and talk about long bus trips home, or train rides to the place where family and friends wait, ready to take back in their son or daughter for the holidays. When I finally turned in that wad of semester clearance paperwork yesterday I felt like bursting inside. Finally! I can throw myself into holiday shopping and cookie baking. Finally! I can work on some of the writing projects that have been simmering on the back burner for so long. And finally! I can start counting the days until we ourselves (and the dog and the cat and the rabbit) head home for the holidays, back to my childhood home, back to the place that waits, ready to take us in. I can't wait. Happy weekend!