That's the sound of the semester burning out its last ashes. For me, anyway. I give but one final this spring, on Thursday, and then I plan to hurriedly grade the exams afterwards, enter final grades, and enter a long waiting period.
My learning support students wrote their second writing samples today and thus finished the second of a three-step process in exiting the learning support English sequence. Now, those who pass the writing sample get to (re)take COMPASS. The samples will be graded by Wednesday night, but my classes don't take their COMPASS until Wednesday of next week, the 13th.
In addition, those who don't pass COMPASS are allowed one retest on any of several dates and times up through Friday night, the 15th--which is the night of our rehearsal dinner. The wedding is the next night, and hangover recovery is the next day, Sunday. Any COMPASS retests completed Friday night won't post to the system until the following Monday, the 18th. This means I'll have to monitor the system up through the morning of the 18th, because any failing grade on COMPASS means I have to go back and change that grade from passing to an IP (in progress). Just a little wrinkle I'll have to deal with, an annoyance.
But I'm glad I give only one final. The last day of the semester is tomorrow, but my one class that day is not meeting, since I finished singing my song last Thursday. I'm going in for a few office hours, grading the last two research essays, and cutting out early, hopefully before noon.
There are few other feelings like this, the feeling of another chapter being completed written and a door closing behind me. I can leave this one and begin again in the summer. That may be the best thing about teaching: the certainty that it will be done after 15 weeks. No matter what, it will come to an end.
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