Woohoooo!!!

When I first got to the cafe where I'm writing this, at the table next to me was a swarthy-ish French dude (I know) with whom I imagined myself exchanging looks, even if it's more likely that he had a stiff neck or a mild form of Tourette's syndrome or something. But then he left and Monsieur Swarth has been replaced by a guy in a bad suit who won't stop hiccuping. Loudly. Sigh. In the grand scheme of today, though, Monsieur Swarth and Mr. Hiccup don't much matter at all. Because...

Whew. Joder. R-O-L-A-I-D-S. And any other words of relief you can think of. It's done. Terminado. I did it. Holy crap.

The course isn't really over. Tomorrow I have to listen to some presentations and there's the final exam plus some office hours and after all of that plus grading there will be a day when the students get to come and complain about their grades. So I'm not done with the little fuckers, but I am done with lecturing them and holy fucking christ does that feel good.

They were really loud today. Sort of understandable -- I was crazy excited about it being the last day of class, too -- but still I wanted to strangle them. But then they saved me from having to do any sort of review by having no questions whatsoever, and then when it was all over the little fuckers clapped. It's what they do here, so it doesn't necessarily mean that they actually like or respect me or anything like that, but still I got a kick out of it. I also got all awkward and didn't know where to look or what to do with my hands and would have definitely turned bright red except that I was already all red because it was about 400 degrees in our classroom. While they were clapping I remembered an announcement I forgot to make so I started yelling "Wait, wait, I forgot something," and one of the guys in the front turned around and really exaggerated the clapping, as in "Hey, if we all keep clapping loudly maybe she'll stop talking." It was cute. They really are endearing little assholes. Endearing little assholes that I never have to try and make shut up ever again. Whew.