April, Maine, and June: The Cruelest Month

The school year was a fight to the finish, and April, May, and June tied for the busiest, craziest, and insanest months of the year. I can't even remember the details now, honestly. It's a blur. May is always crazy so that was okay, but April got it started early, and June was not to be outdone. There was a parade of visitors at school, followed by a conference at which my colleague and I gave a knockout presentation, followed very closely by the SAT, which I read to a young man with anxiety AND dyslexia, followed by Founders' Day, followed by diagnostic testing of all the kidlets, followed by exam review, followed by exams, followed by graduation, all wrapped up with interviews of candidates for teachers AND an Elementary Director. Somewhere in there I attended the Smart Kids with LD gala, where my tutoring student won an award, and the Graduates' Dinner, where I toasted my graduating senior. Because of the relentless winter we had, we had to extend the school year by three days, which meant that I had no time off before I had to start getting ready for our June tutor training course. The next thing I knew, it was the end of June. Seriously.

Random picture of me, taken by me, in the hotel at the conference so I could send a photo home for Duncan.

 

Duncan being a ham.

 

 Mothers' Day at Hancock Shaker Villiage, where we had a picnic and visited the baby animals.  Look how cute Duncan is...then pretend I'm not in the picture.

 

Oh my gosh.  I wanted to take him home!

 

I did take him home.  But not in his Shaker outfit.

My former student, Samantha, came for Founders' Day to be on a panel of alums talking about life with dyslexia. One of the great things that happened this spring was that I helped her win an Intel Reader in a contest on Facebook.

August won a Special Recognition Award from Smart Kids with LD, for being an all around pretty cool guy.  Well, it was actually for his work running Kildonan's chapter of Project Eye-to-Eye, an organization cofounded by Jonathan Mooney, seen here with August.

Taylor graduated.

So, yeah, it was crazy, but I can't deny that a lot of good came from it too. I love my family. I love my job. I love my vacation that comes at the end of it all. Tune in next time, when I talk about the beach, the fireworks, the bikes, or other fun things of summer.