The end of the road

Today was the last day of school.

 Sniff. Tear. Leap for joy. Furtive look around.  Did anyone see that leap?

Teaching this year has been exhilarating, fun, funny, exhausting, frustrating, ridiculous, irritating and awesome. I've loved my 5-year olds and my sixth graders the most, and I'm awfully sad to see them go.

I'll miss fielding questions like:

"Do you know Justin Beiber?"

"Isn't New York in England?" (Followed by someone else rolling their eyes  "Of course its not in England, dummy, it's in the US because it's the city with the White House, remember?)"

"Aren't you from England?"

"Why do I have to say 'can't' instead of 'no can'?"

I've also gotten about 200 sloppy cheek kisses over the past two days, which is the accepted Spanish form of saying goodbye, so I am currently both utterly charmed and coming down with some rare mix of viral diseases.

All in all, I'm ready for a vacation but glad to be coming back next year.

How's that for some paradox?