Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Departures and Arrivals

Sunday, 15 of my girls graduated. By Monday afternoon, all 15 were moved out. That only leaves 25 girls and by this time next week, they’ll be gone, too. It was a crazy, chaotic weekend of tears, last-minute packing and flash flood warnings. The graduation ended up outside in 90% humidity. Out of the top ten students in the senior class, four of them were my girls.

There are some I will miss (already miss) and others who left bags of trash and drawers with hairballs in their rooms. There are so many things on the “Now We Know & Can Do Better Next Year” list and while I’ve accrued some tips (I’m now an expert at mailing large boxes at a very, small post office), me thinks the end of the year will always embody a certain amount of madness. The recycling of notebooks and returning of internet chords. Room keys and broken vacuums. Passports and bags & bags & bags (& bags) of discarded hangers. Wet towels left hanging on the backs of doors like shed skins. Empty, rickety shoe racks yawning into hallways. Oozing shampoo bottles hidden under sinks, the melted remainders of rushed mornings.

The underclassmen observed the panic and, in some cases, were left to deal with the abandoned fridges or hole-punched confetti left under desks. I told them to make it easy on themselves. To pack a box every day this week and take out trash bags as they make them, using the seniors as a cautionary tale. And they nodded. But we shall see come next Monday and Tuesday if they learned anything from the past weekend.

And we shall next year if I’ve learned anything from the past year. Next year, over half the dorm will be new girls. Already we’ve started planning for the ESL program, which, in its second year, they’ve asked me to direct. Already we’re discussing the changes to our dorm structure for next year and discussing how the dorm program will look. Oh yeah, and I guess I should start preparing for Front Loader Gilbert McCannell. Although if Henry taught me anything, it’s that “preparation” isn’t applicable and any attempt at such is fairly futile.

Today, the most important thing of the summer was taken care of: the air conditioning was installed.

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