It’s that time of year again.
We just turned our clocks forward, and with that, it feels as though time itself has started moving in fast forward, too.
The fourth quarter of the school year is here, and it’s going to be a mad sprint to the summer, our finish line. All of the sudden, the school year feels like it’s drawing to a close. All of those end-of-the-school-year milestones are already upon us. State testing is right around the corner. It’s time to register for next year’s courses and order a T-shirt for field day. Spring sports are in full swing, and spring concerts and theater performances are in rehearsal. Pretty soon, there will be school spirit dress up days, end of the year classroom parties, and teacher gifts to purchase. Our weekend calendars will be full of graduation parties, sports tournaments, and end-of-term projects.
There will be days when our calendars are brimming to the max with conflicting events, and it will feel as if those lazy summer days spent poolside can’t come quickly enough.
The fourth quarter of school can be hectic, to say the least. But I still want to pause for a moment and try to enjoy it. While the month of April has its downsides, I much prefer it to its sister month, August. There is a greater sense of accomplishment and even nostalgia in getting through the month of April and looking ahead to May and summer break. While August, on the other hand, always feels overwhelming — an endless parade of syllabi to sign, new courses with orientations and parent/teacher meetings, and new rules and policies to learn. It’s difficult to switch from breezy summer life back into the 8 to 3 schedule, and any school-related difficulties feel even more daunting with the knowledge that ten more months of those challenges lie ahead.
But April brings spring, and as temperatures rise, we look forward to spending more time outdoors and enjoying a longer stretch of quality time with family in the summer. Just think: there will be trips to take, visits to the pool, outdoor picnics on blankets, and drive-in movies at night with the glow of fireflies in the distance. The promise of summer is so sweet; we just have one last quarter to finish first.
And though the onset of this last bit of the school year may feel stressful to you, let me offer you a quiet nod of solidarity as we both hunker down for these last nine weeks and race to the finish. Though your days in April and May likely have double the activities that your planner saw in January and February, the chaos will hopefully make the days feel as if they’re passing faster. Every day that we flip a page on the calendar, we are one step closer to basking in the freedom of summer.
