School's Out!

I remember the last days of the academic year when I was a kid in elementary school.  The days were way too long.  In an era before air-conditioned classrooms, we all ached to get out and run - out of the stuffy, smelly closed-in spaces of concrete block walls and waxed linoleum floors, away from the musty books and the old fifth-grade teacher whose tattered black wig moved every time she scratched the back of her head with an old wooden ruler which resided conspicuously at the top of her square cardboard desk blotter.  The same ruler which whistled and then stung as it was wielded with vicious force against the knuckles of ancy children, fidgeting and squirming in the heat, anxious to be done with lessons on grammar and formulas by rote.  I can still smell the chalk dust and purple Ditto machine copies.  You were truly blessed if you were chosen to take the walk to the A/V room with the master, the prized original text of the day's lesson, carefully typed by the teacher, to turn out copies (quite literally, hand-crank them out) on the Ditto machine.

Wow.  Times really have changed, haven't they?

Yesterday was the last day of my computer course.  I completed my final exam PowerPoint project, uploaded the finished product into the online class drop-box, and then printed out the slides in handout form, 4 slides per sheet, in grayscale.  Both pages were properly formatted and spell-corrected.  No white-out or correction-tape was necessary, I had already reviewed all of my work on my full-color, flat-screen monitor prior to printing.  The headers and footers were automatically updated with the date and time, my file name clearly showing in the lower left-hand corner of my papers.

Once I had verfied that both versions of my work had been received by the instructor, I silently gathered my coat and bag and exited the carpeted, air-conditioned classroom.  I walked to the parking lot in a reserved fashion with a classmate, another working, middle-aged mom.  We chatted in low, polite tones until I reached my minivan.  After wishing each other a pleasant summer, I shut myself into the quiet, soft gray leather interior of my vehicle and started the engine.  Seatbelt securely buckled and almost out of the parking lot, I felt that old familiar rush of adrenaline.

"WHOOHOO!"  I yelled.  There's still a bit of fifth grader left in me, I guess.  I can't say I'm disappointed, it seems like forever since I've been able to go right home after work to take off my shoes and work in the flowerbed.  Doesn't matter how old I get, summer still means getting to walk barefoot through the grass and not having to study :)

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