Pen (or Type) That Note

 It's the first week of July. School is now officially over for the 2022-2023 year. My scrapbook album is a testimony to the number of amazing moments that occurred. I still haven't completed it with all the photos and it is so large that I've had to transfer the pages out of a traditional photo album.

The last week of school was busy. Remember Stephen Tong? Mr. Tong's school retirement event went very well. Instead of a whole-school assembly, each class prepared a mini-putt course. On June 27, he was escorted by a caddy to each room where he could play some golf, chat with the students, and experience some of the other presentations they planned, such as tribute songs. After school, parents, colleagues, and former students gathered in the staff room to socialize.

As part of his "parting gift", he received another memory book, one filled with letters from current and former students. You can see the huge white binder on the table in front of him.

I'm not retiring this year but I received several heartwarming letters and emails from students and parents.

Their words mean so much. Thank you, especially Grade 8 grads HL, ES, AI, and FR. You are too kind.

I encourage people to take pen to paper or keyboard to screen and compose notes of appreciation for those special folks in your life, whether it's for a significant milestone like a retirement, a year-end moment, or "just because". You never know the impact it will have.

One of the other reasons I suggest this is that recently I saw a comment posted to my blog from an entry I wrote back in 2012 (yes, eleven years ago). I moderate my blog's comments so I am not inundated with spam. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the comments were from my former Grade 12 and OAC English teacher! He finally saw my open letter to him. (You'll have to read the comments from the bottom up.)

I will have to ask people who know more about Blogger than I do about how to figure out how to keep in touch, since he didn't leave an email or phone number that I can tell. 

There's no "rest for the wicked", as I'm working on one - soon to be three - AQs, weeding two sections of the school library in preparation for my inventory, and preparing my SLLC annual report, along with the scrapbook review. At least I'll get to sleep in a bit.

P.S. This is the half-way point of the year and I peeked back on my #OneWord focus. It is LIFT. Today's blog theme matches that goal nicely. The advice to celebrate others with words and actions is to lift, to raise upward, to elevate. I hope this post does that, for my colleague Steve, for those students (while still respecting their privacy) and for my former teacher, Mr. Sturm.