from underneath the rubble, sing a rebel song
Wooooooooooo! I have survived this ridiculous school year! My boss made a comment to us at our end-of-year staff meeting on Thursday about surviving the year, and honestly, survived really is the right word for it. This was a rough year all around, for almost everyone I talked to, and I am really glad to see it over and done with. Here's hoping for better things next year!
Yesterday was our last day, and while it should have been a happy, lighthearted day, it ended up being somewhat heavy. I found out Thursday that there was a critical incident at my high school, which they needed me to come in for on Friday morning. The critical incident was that a student had drowned at a cottage the day before; his friends were there and had tried to save him but couldn't, and a 16-year-old, well-liked, straight A student is now dead. So Friday, the school social worker and I, along with two members of the critical incident response team were at the school, where a memorial table and poster had been set up to honor the student. It wasn't a regular day of school for the high school, just the day that the kids were coming to pick up their report cards, so our job was to keep an eye on the crowd around the memorial table and make sure anyone who needed it was directed to the right people to talk to (guidance, etc.). Eventually a group was gathered in the gym to talk about and share memories of the student.
It was a hard morning, really. I did my best to be helpful, offer tissues, answer questions, direct students as needed, but I struggled with feeling like there was really nothing I could do in that situation. And I can only imagine how difficult it must be for this student's friends and teachers, not to mention his siblings and parents who were also there yesterday. The social worker and I will go back the first couple days of school in September to provide support for anyone who needs it at that time, and I guess we'll just do the best we can.
On top of the emotional difficulty of yesterday, I also seem to have caught some kind of stomach bug that started Thursday night. My stomach was in a lot of pain, which kept me up most of the night, and Friday morning I woke up with a slight fever. I was shaky and my muscles felt sore and had it been any other day, I would've taken a sick day and stayed home. But I took some Advil for the fever and went in, though my stomach continued to hurt for the rest of the day. By the time I got home from work, I felt like the fever and associated symptoms were back, so I napped for about an hour and a half, which seemed to help a little, but my stomach was still quite unhappy. I at least got a better night's sleep last night, so I feel a bit more functional today, though still not great. Thankfully (knock on wood), I haven't been vomiting, so I'm hoping that this bug will just pass soon and we can avoid that unpleasantness at least.
So yeah, all of that meant that my last day of work wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but it's almost fitting that this shitty year would go out on a whimper. At least now it's done, and I can start enjoying my first paid summer! Woot! :D Speaking of money, last night I got an email from ING that said Just a quick note to let you know that your $100.00 Bonus has been deposited into your Account and will appear in your Account History. Uh, what?! Dude, not that I'm going to complain about free money, but what am I getting this $100 bonus for? I think I'm going to call them today just to find out why I got that, but in the meantime, an extra $100 is certainly never going to hurt! My old bank never gave me any bonuses, that's for damn sure. I'm more and more glad I switched to ING all the time.
It is now 8:30 am and I've been up for 2 hours already. Because even though it's the weekend and I can start sleeping in, my body was wide awake at 6:18. I tried to go back to sleep for awhile, but it wasn't happening, so I got out of bed around 6:45, which is when I usually get up for work. Meh. I'm sure my body will get used to being able to sleep a bit more soon. Today, Brad and I are going to check out a farmer's market I saw a sign for last weekend, and I'm hoping to score some fresh Ontario strawberries. Then tomorrow, the girls and I are going to Erin's house for brunch and to make flowers for her wedding, which should be lots of fun. I never ended up going to the concert I had tickets for on Thursday, partly because I was starting to not feel so great because of the stomach thing, and partly because I had no way to pay for either parking or public transit to get down there. I don't feel too bummed about missing it, though, and there's lots of other fun things for me to look forward to. So for now, I think I will start my first day of summer vacation off with some reading . . . unless I decide to try and nap for a bit, haha. And then I'll need to psych myself up for tackling the mountain of dishes in our kitchen, which is higher than usual because hey, guess what! Our dishwasher is broken again! :-/ Fun times.
Anyway, hope you're all doing well, and enjoy your fireworks this week if I don't post again before Canada Day/July 4th!
Yesterday was our last day, and while it should have been a happy, lighthearted day, it ended up being somewhat heavy. I found out Thursday that there was a critical incident at my high school, which they needed me to come in for on Friday morning. The critical incident was that a student had drowned at a cottage the day before; his friends were there and had tried to save him but couldn't, and a 16-year-old, well-liked, straight A student is now dead. So Friday, the school social worker and I, along with two members of the critical incident response team were at the school, where a memorial table and poster had been set up to honor the student. It wasn't a regular day of school for the high school, just the day that the kids were coming to pick up their report cards, so our job was to keep an eye on the crowd around the memorial table and make sure anyone who needed it was directed to the right people to talk to (guidance, etc.). Eventually a group was gathered in the gym to talk about and share memories of the student.
It was a hard morning, really. I did my best to be helpful, offer tissues, answer questions, direct students as needed, but I struggled with feeling like there was really nothing I could do in that situation. And I can only imagine how difficult it must be for this student's friends and teachers, not to mention his siblings and parents who were also there yesterday. The social worker and I will go back the first couple days of school in September to provide support for anyone who needs it at that time, and I guess we'll just do the best we can.
On top of the emotional difficulty of yesterday, I also seem to have caught some kind of stomach bug that started Thursday night. My stomach was in a lot of pain, which kept me up most of the night, and Friday morning I woke up with a slight fever. I was shaky and my muscles felt sore and had it been any other day, I would've taken a sick day and stayed home. But I took some Advil for the fever and went in, though my stomach continued to hurt for the rest of the day. By the time I got home from work, I felt like the fever and associated symptoms were back, so I napped for about an hour and a half, which seemed to help a little, but my stomach was still quite unhappy. I at least got a better night's sleep last night, so I feel a bit more functional today, though still not great. Thankfully (knock on wood), I haven't been vomiting, so I'm hoping that this bug will just pass soon and we can avoid that unpleasantness at least.
So yeah, all of that meant that my last day of work wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, but it's almost fitting that this shitty year would go out on a whimper. At least now it's done, and I can start enjoying my first paid summer! Woot! :D Speaking of money, last night I got an email from ING that said Just a quick note to let you know that your $100.00 Bonus has been deposited into your Account and will appear in your Account History. Uh, what?! Dude, not that I'm going to complain about free money, but what am I getting this $100 bonus for? I think I'm going to call them today just to find out why I got that, but in the meantime, an extra $100 is certainly never going to hurt! My old bank never gave me any bonuses, that's for damn sure. I'm more and more glad I switched to ING all the time.
It is now 8:30 am and I've been up for 2 hours already. Because even though it's the weekend and I can start sleeping in, my body was wide awake at 6:18. I tried to go back to sleep for awhile, but it wasn't happening, so I got out of bed around 6:45, which is when I usually get up for work. Meh. I'm sure my body will get used to being able to sleep a bit more soon. Today, Brad and I are going to check out a farmer's market I saw a sign for last weekend, and I'm hoping to score some fresh Ontario strawberries. Then tomorrow, the girls and I are going to Erin's house for brunch and to make flowers for her wedding, which should be lots of fun. I never ended up going to the concert I had tickets for on Thursday, partly because I was starting to not feel so great because of the stomach thing, and partly because I had no way to pay for either parking or public transit to get down there. I don't feel too bummed about missing it, though, and there's lots of other fun things for me to look forward to. So for now, I think I will start my first day of summer vacation off with some reading . . . unless I decide to try and nap for a bit, haha. And then I'll need to psych myself up for tackling the mountain of dishes in our kitchen, which is higher than usual because hey, guess what! Our dishwasher is broken again! :-/ Fun times.
Anyway, hope you're all doing well, and enjoy your fireworks this week if I don't post again before Canada Day/July 4th!