Greetings from
Kingston!
Yes. Kingston.
People have been telling me that they cannot wait for my
travel blogs for the past couple of weeks. These same people are probably
wondering “I waited for freaking Kingston?”
The truth is that after closing down shop at school, setting
up shop for this trip and dealing with a few other issues I simply did not have
time to do a blog entry until tonight. Having missed last weekend I wanted to
make sure I wrote something this weekend.
Eric and I left this Canada Day evening so that it would not
be a mad dash to the airport tomorrow. So here we are at the Comfort Inn in
Kingston with our lovely view of Pizza Hut, the Dairy Queen and Swiss Chalet.
We would be able to see more Canada Day fireworks right now but the gigantic
inflatable frosty on the roof of the Wendy’s is blocking our view. They sound
nice a patriotic, though.
We had our commencement ceremonies at Glebe on Friday. It
was a fun as it gets when you have seveny-five thousand people flashing cameras
at the forty-five hundred grads walking across the floor during a heat wave. To
be honest, though, I actually do manage to enjoy it. I have the honour of
calling out some of the names so I sit in the front next to the gigantic fan
that is used to test aerodynamic capabilities of jets when not blowing the caps
off of grads in our auditorium. So I am not so hot as I am disheveled with my
tie over my shoulder. But even better, when I am not greeting them on stage
during their big moment I am sitting as they walk by me.
I am not going to deny that there are a few kids I am happy
to see the end of. Some where you wish them all the best...elsewhere. But there
are also many others that you have watched grow into fine young men and women
and are honoured to be a part of their narrative. So many future leaders, and
caretakers, and instruments of change. And even the ones that drove you crazy,
the ones you visualised stapling their lips to their desks just for a moment of
silence, even they have, for the most part, become these amazing young adults
with great potential.
There was one family of three sibling that all graduated
together. The two boys rarely smiled, the girl had had a difficult couple of
years, and the path towards this day for all three was very winding and
complicated. Yet here they all were. Smiling. Laughing. Celebrating their
achievements together.
Teaching, for me, is more often than not an act of faith. On
the day of commencement that faith comes to the forefront for me as I silently
watch these young people walk by me and out of my life. For the most part I
will be forgotten by them, to be brought up perhaps when they remember an
idiosyncrasy I have or something I have said. And that’s the way it should be
really. And while I probably won’t remember their names I will recall their
energy for it has fed me this year in preparation for next fall.
Tomorrow I head to the airport in Toronto and I leave for
London. I have not been there for many years. Not since my university days. I
have been told that the city is already heaving under the build up for the
Olympics. We will be finishing up our course in Rome when it begins, but we
will nevertheless feel the fever pitch of this great event.
I already miss my house, my porch and my beautiful little
village with all the people I love in it. I am trying to ignore the fact that
this is my last night with Eric for awhile. After I finish this post we plan to
look through our information for our upcoming road trip and start making
decisions.
Summer has indeed arrived!
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