In Aleknagik, Alaska – “School’s Out for the Summer!” This popular marching band tune is my mantra today. It’s funnily familiar, how the anticipatory countdown to summer floats through time. Life seems ever-changing, but now and then, it can also carry a characteristic déjà vu. I feel light – free from a persistent paper-flow of lesson plans, homework packets, textbook assignments and classroom paraphernalia. As a student, the feeling was the exactly same, only then, I was delegated the role of learner instead of teacher.

This lightness is outwardly expressed with flamboyant giddiness. I wish to skip all day long, swinging arms high to the sky, and delighting in that ephemeral moment – at a jump’s apex – where I am in complete defiance of gravity. Today the summer simply appears to be an inexhaustible expanse of time; it’s as though it’ll never end, or, that it’s too far off to even fathom the arrival of fall, and the start of another school year.

There’s much to look forward to – an adventure to Anchorage, Alaska with a certain sweetie, time in Minnesota with family and friends, a possible service trip to Mississippi with my Daddio, a visit from that same sweetie at the end of July, a cycle tour with my custom-built Bike Friday from Montreal to Boston in early August, and hopefully, a hop across the Atlantic for a few weeks to meet up with mates in Europe.

Still, on the vanguard of all of this upcoming excitement, there’s much I’m already missing about the rhythm of a routine school day in Aleknagik. It’s somewhat strange for me – this whirlwind wanderer – to gravitate (even slightly) towards that which is habitual, in lieu of its antithesis. But, I find myself doing it, more and more during my 29th – and soon to be 30th year of life. It’s quite intriguing, actually, and I’m attempting to give my full attention to it, rather than resist – fecklessly fighting-against-the-flow.

I'm missing Thomas's dimpled smile and warm wave - "Hi, Miss Elise!" - from the jungle gym outside. Last week I spent two afternoons in the K,1,2 classroom, and on both days Thomas drew stick figures of Thomas Tinker III and Miss Elise; "Look, it's me and you!", he'd say. I'm also missing little Jamal, who's got the most marvelous shrugged shoulder saunter. He feigns to be shy with the bill of his hat pulled down over his eyes, but knows quite well actually, that he's got every onlooker's heart.

In the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classroom, I'm missing those rare moments where we somehow gelled together - when we were on the same page, and I wasn't struggling to keep one on task while disciplining another, and simultaneously, sighting an additional challenge out of the corner of my eye while hearing a catastrophic tangle develop behind me.

With the 6th, 7th and 8th graders, I'm missing our jocular interplay between humor and education. We giggled, chuckled and even guffawed our way through class, and, still managed to establish a studious atmosphere - well, most of the time anyway. For the next two weeks I'll fling myself into the Dillingham school system to mitigate - or perhaps, add to - the pandemonium until they're able to sing "School's Out for the Summer!" It'll be a hoot, I'm sure. This is Elise, signing out from Ravensview, AK.