Today is my second last day of internship. Tomorrow will be exactly as you remember your last day of school before Christmas holidays. Teachers putting on movies and letting students play games in class. I honestly thought I’d be more excited than this.
Last week, I was excited. I was jumping out of my seat with anticipation. I’d go home with butterflies in my stomach knowing the end was near, and this whole process would have a big checkmark next to it. This week, it feels bittersweet.
There have been a lot of experiences I’ve been a part of here that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’ve enjoyed them so much that I have decided to remain a part of some even after I leave. I mentioned in the past that I’d be co-coaching the improv team, and I’ll be doing that well into February. If our team wins, I’ll be coaching until April.
What happens now? Well, Christmas, and then back to uni. I’m registered in a number of classes that I’m fairly excited to take part in. One being “Psychology of Music.” I imagine this will be quite relevant to what I want to teach. I’ve found through word of mouth that most people aren’t particularly interested in going back to university after internship has finished. I can understand this, in that when you’ve had a taste of what your potential career consists of, you just want to be done with university. I think I’m partially excited to go back to school because I feel there is so much more I can still learn there. It makes me wonder if I’ll go back to get another degree (most likely in the arts), or upgrade to a masters of sorts. I know that is not in the cards right now, but perhaps somewhere down the line it will be.
You know that feeling you get when something is finished, and you’ve succeeded and now you can move on to the next thing in your life, whatever that may be? This usually happens to me at the end of every semester. It’s not happening right now. Maybe it’s too soon, maybe it’ll hit me this weekend when I’m ACTUALLY done. My conscience knows the importance of this ending, but for some reason I’m just not feeling it.
Yesterday I had this strange experience while I was teaching my grade 9 drama class. I was speaking to them regarding something and I suddenly became… (thoughtful pause) self-aware? I don’t know. I just became extremely conscious of what I was partaking in. Kinda like how I was the first day of school. After a couple weeks of teaching, it started to become second nature and I would just do it. It would just happen (with the help of a lesson plan every now and again). Yesterday, while I was teaching, my thoughts in my mind were precisely this: “Holy s***! These kids are listening to me! I am walking around this class guiding 20-some teeny-boppers through this class!” I’m glad I accidentally took the time to realize that before I finished. Thinking back on it, it felt like taking one last look at your bare house, stripped of everything that made it what it was, right before you move out of it forever.
I have some friends who were also going through their internship this semester. A few of them have expressed that they will become waterfalls on their last day. I think I’m going to do the exact opposite. I’m just going to laugh my a** off the entire time. Saying things like: “Can you believe THAT was your semester?” and “If they let us get away with this, what can’t we pull off!?” I mean this in the best way, of course. It’s not like we played 7-up and duck duck goose the entire time (although we did play this game called duck, duck, gutenberg which is basically the same game, except a full-contact version of it).
I want to mention in this post specifically that I am very thankful to those who took the time to read this blog. It definitely made it worthwhile knowing there were at least a few people tuning in to what I was doing. Some people expressed ideas that it would be extremely funny to be a fly-on-the-wall in my class. Hopefully this granted that wish somewhat. Also, I’d like to thank those who have supported me through this endeavour. I can’t begin to name all of you, but you definitely know who you are. I know it sounds cliché but I couldn’t have made it through this without the constant encouragement I’ve received from you all. I am forever grateful and have a new-found respect for everyone involved, on top of the respect I already have for you.
Well, this is it, I suppose. It’s been surreal. I’ll continue to post, however, my posts may not be as significant or worthwhile as some that I’ve done in recent memory. Also, there is one post I held off on posting earlier this semester, for reasons that will be made apparent once it’s up. That post can be found here. It should be up for reading within the next few days.
