As most of you know, I am completing my resignation from what was intended to be my first full year teaching position.  I have three more school days with my students, and have been fulfilling parent-teacher conference requirements this week.  In my experience, Parent-Teacher Conference week is always the most hectic time of the school year for teachers and for some reason it always falls during a spirit week (in this case Red Ribbon Week), and always near or during the week of Halloween.  Maintaining focus and a proper sleep/eating schedule is nearly impossible during this week.  Luckily, tomorrow is the last day of these conferences for my school, and I am wrapping up my employment so I feel like I have prepared much better for this week than I did last year while I was managing student-teaching, work, and graduation requirements.

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What feels most strange for me in this time is that I am conferencing with parents and teaching classes as normal and only my colleagues know that I am leaving so far.  My administrator hasn't wanted me to tell my students that I am leaving yet.  My last day is next Monday.  Another weird happenstance for when I was asked to submit my resignation effective date because it was the final day of the month.  At the time, I think we all thought someone would apply and be hired to take my position.  That has yet to happen and a substitute will take over for me on Tuesday.  It is unfortunate and just feels messy.

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The extra time at school in between conferences has allowed my colleagues and I to discuss my leave more freely, however; and I have received nothing but validation in my decision from those who have talked to me.  I will most certainly miss working alongside such supportive and considerate people.  The positive interaction I've experienced has definitely made me feel better about the decision.  When I discuss how much I hate that it is not a clean break: not on a Friday,  not at the end of a term, or that there is no one that has applied for my position since it was posted, they remind me that those are all factors that I advocated for when I resigned and gave such a long notice period, but in the end cannot control.    

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I have since accepted the full-time position offer returning to the hospitality industry and I am incredibly excited to reconnect with my former team and guests and meet some new faces.  I think maybe I am just feeling weird because I have tried to line everything up to make this whole process smooth and painless as possible for what will be my former employment and it just didn't work out that way.  I don't really know what I thought I would accomplish by sharing this, but I started going through all of my new followers and see what you all were talking about and saw many updates on former stories and thought I would join in and post a little more of the progress through my resignation.  It's a bittersweet feeling looking upon the final days, and I hope I am given the go ahead to tell my students soon.  

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Stay tuned: on Friday I take Kharma The Corgi-Collie for her follow-up visit to rehab.  We are hopeful, but she has been experiencing some lameness again this week and has been back on her pain control medication.    

[Images Credit](https://pixabay.com/)