I have two more days of vacation left.  It has been good and bad.  I think the cats and I bonded fairly well.  That is comforting.  However, what promised to be a summer of me actually being social ended up being a summer of waiting around.  Both former students and acquaintances had made tentative plans and I usually left my schedule clear for nothing.  I am the kind of person who will get back to you if I say I will regarding plans to hang out.  I will also let you know pretty far in advance if it looks like I am not available.  I think I am a dying breed.  There was the weekend someone was potentially getting the ability to see me; the cafe trip that never happened on a Thursday night; the coffee and shooting adventure on that Wednesday, the Dunkin' chat session.....  You get my drift. And there are more than this....

It's not that I clear a busy schedule for these plans.  I have nothing going on in my life - clearly - but if hubby or the nieces and nephew were needing me, I made sure I let them know I might have plans so I left that time clear.  And then I got nothing.  Most of the time I diddled around the yard waiting for the confirmation that never came.  So you might say that I was a fool for leaving my schedule clear.  Yet due to my upbringing, I make sure I have a concrete reason for doing things as I do.  I had a friend who reamed me when I asked for some time for something because I apparently acted like I was always busy and like he never was.  So, I learned to make my schedule clear and always be available, to not be difficult to schedule time with.  And instead I end up sitting alone in my back yard with the damn ipad waiting for that thing to beep a message.

And so the students have received their schedules and I see the online flurry of excitement over having my class.  I am happy they like my class, but I no longer have any illusions that they will appreciate me post-graduation the way they appreciate other teachers.  Once we walk off that field in June, I know I will never see them again.  Unless they need something from me.  The girl who never thanked me for the use of the backdrops?  She needs something from me.  Received that e-mail on my holiday last week.  I'm sitting on it.  Then there are the kids who come to me to have me print things for their post-graduation endeavours.  I foolishly think they have come to visit me (me!), but then they get to the point and I look to see if I have enough paper and ink, and they say see ya before the ink is dry....

Sure, they might come and visit during the school day, but to be honest, I don't like that anymore.  There are only two boys who know how to do this without being intrusive.  They just come, sit, observe, talk to the kids about stuff (like their jobs, study abroad, helpful stuff), and have even helped me out in class.  The rest are really just interrupting me.  I need to teach and be present all the time for my kids.  When someone comes to chit chat in the middle of class, it is a problem.  Then there was the incident with the campus cop and the visitor who caused me some trouble.  I just don't need it.  I love my kids and used to love their visits, but I am no longer willing to get into trouble for someone's actions.  Particularly when I know these kids have more convenient time for other people.

So I am happy for the new classes and happy to get to see the kids again, but my hopes are no longer up for anything beyond that.  And I will continue to go to the club and dance my cares away and meet new people, but I know it ends once I pull away from Mulberry Street.