The completion ceremony tonight was a time of celebration and tears. These students have journeyed through a lot the last three years together and less than half of the number who started in 2005 made it to completion tonight. Many of them have made friendships which will probably last their lifetimes; and they have an even broader support network outside of those close friends. This has been an intense three weeks and they all made it through. Some tears. Some arguments. Some "why do we have to...." feelings of burn out. But they all hung in and completed this part of their professional journey.
It felt good to be a part of it. My thoughts will be with those who are taking the educational interpreter performance exam tomorrow and I wish them all well.
And tomorrow I return home to my partner, my car with a new passenger side rear-view mirror (something happened and the old one "just fell out" one day as my partner was driving - but she got it fixed and will clean out her stuff, as well), to my old cat which has apparently been exhibiting stress behavior recently probably partially in reaction to my absence and partially in reaction to the girly boy new cat (Lester), to my workout partner (we have a walking date for Monday morning, to be followed by sushi - something I have missed here in Colorado) ... to temperatures below 90! Tomorrow night I will sleep in my own bed with the window open. Here I don't open the window because (a) it still tends to be too hot for me so I sleep with the AC on low and (b) the potential of the Greeley smell and (c) last time I did, everything is so dry that (I assume) some dust and or pollen blew in and I ended up with a coughing fit for an hour. But at home I can sleep with the window open and the cool breeze coming in and be comfortable. My bed here isn't bad -- better than I expected; but home is more comfortable.
I also had the opportunity to work with some good people here (the other staff) and hope to keep in touch and to have the chance to work with them again.
