A Big Day: My Birthday and the Last Day of Teaching

Though yesterday was my birthday, I actually celebrated it on Wednesday night because of my overbooked Thursday schedule. Katy, Michael, and I traveled downtown to the newly opened Belgian pub, which turned out to be quite fun. The establishment was standing room only, but we lucked out and found a few seats at a long table next to a lesbian couple. While I'm generally not one to chat up strangers, fortunately my mates are, and we made good friends with the significantly older duo. They are some of the coolest, wittiest people I've met in this town in ages. We took turns buying one another french fries, shared beers, sassed back and forth, and even developed a contingency plan should I go off of health care and develop cancer. (Seriously, one of them is a cancer surgeon.) Katy and Michael Michael wanted to know if it'd be acceptable to invite them to my party later that night, which of course I approved because I want to be barbecue friends with these people. As I decided last week, we were returning to the lesbian karaoke bar. Michael and Katy each invited them to "the karaoke bar," the place's name clearly registered recognition with them, which confused them. I finally cut in and and said, "Actually, it's a lesbian bar." I understand it's an interesting predicament, since we were already going there and didn't want to make it seem like we were inviting them just because they were lesbians, but I think there's such a thing as being overly-cautious. Alas, they never showed up (to their credit, they were tanked and admit they probably couldn't drive), but digits were exchanged, so here's hoping.

The lesbian karaoke bar was a hoot. Because it was my birthday, a lot of the lesbians dedicated their songs to me, which was a nice gesture. Allison brought a nice cake, Michael and Terri bought me drinks, Katy and Phoebe sprung for an official t-shirt from the bar, and Lindsay and Peter brought a Nascar-themed birthday card with the most awesome one-word inscription on a card ever: "Dykes!" Even better was the fact that my stalker from the previous week was not present. There was one guy who bought me a drink, but did so in a friendly manner because it was my birthday, then proceeded to put the moves on Terri instead. Win-win scenario. For me, anyway.

Since it was a late night, I only got a couple of hours of sleep before it was time to go to work. Although I set an alarm, I must have accidentally fallen back asleep because when Kirsten re-awoke me by calling to wish me a happy birthday, I realized it was 7:30, meaning I should have been to work 20 minutes prior. I didn't even get a chance to put on socks or straighten myself up, instead hopping in the car, getting to work as fast I could.

So it's my both my birthday and my last day of teaching, and for the only time in two years (aside from when there was a traffic accident and then some F-ing in my classroom), I am late to work. Granted, I don't care, but I don't want it to look like I don't care just because it's my last day. On my drive, I panic and wonder whether I should call until I remember that since it's the last day, the first hour has been earmarked for a "study hall for finals," even though I can guarantee that absolutely no studying occurs during this time. I am co-"teach"ing this period, so it's not as if I'm leaving a classroom of kids unattended. When I arrive nearly an hour late, I apologize to the other teacher who doesn't much care. Whew.

During first period, my honors class celebrated my birthday by bringing three cakes, which was a fine gesture. My favorite one was a cookie cake, pictured below.

It reads, "To Mr. M, The Feminist." It's the perfect joke and a good capstone to a year in which I tried to address some social issues in the classroom. I told my students I was a feminist four months ago, and it hasn't come up since, but clearly it resonated on some level if it is part of my farewell celebration. One of my usually well-behaved students surprised me by slamming a cupcake into my face. Had it been a punk, I probably would have reacted poorly, but coming from eir, I found it amusing and left the frosting on for the remainder of the period.

Throughout the day, students wrote messages on my white board wishing me a happy birthday and farewell, which was sweet, except for one message about how I need to watch out for hookers, which I still don't quite understand. By the end of the day, some students were so rambunctious that they began draping my room in paper towels; I let them do whatever they wanted so long as they cleaned it up at the end, and to their credit, they did.

After school, I spent time chatting with some of my more favorite students, finished grading, and cleaned out my classroom until 7 at night, when graduation began. I was assigned to parking lot duty, which meant I stood in the parking lot, surveying for trouble. It was the least essential job ever, it's not like I was valet parking or anything. My students kept walking by me and asking what I was doing, so I tried to make my job seem exciting rather than humiliating, but I didn't even convince myself. The people here were excited for graduation, definitely more excited than students at my high school. As I see it, at my high school when I was a teenager, everyone was expected not only to graduate, but graduate again four years later at the collegiate level. For many of these kids, however, graduating is a big deal. They beat the odds and strung together just enough last-minute Ds to earn a diploma in what is likely the first and last graduation of their lives. Evidently, the parents of these students express their pride for their kids in the form of helium balloons. I swear, there were more balloons in the stadium than people.

Ultimately, I opted to skip out a few hours early, disgruntled with my position. It's not as if I wanted to be sitting through the ceremony with a better job, so I suppose the fact that I got away with skipping out makes it pretty good in the long run. Well wishes to the seniors, but my birthday takes precedence over their graduation, though.

Certainly a long, but eventful birthday.